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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.     Bartlett 
Heard 


<£tiitian 


THE 

COMPLETE  WORKS  OF  NATHANIEL 

HAWTHORNE,  WITH  INTRODUCTORY 

NOTES  BY  GEORGE  PARSONS 

LATHROP 

AND    ILLUSTRATED   WITH 

Etchings  by  Blum,  Church,  Dielman,  Gifford,  Shirlaw, 
and  Turner 

IN   THIRTEEN    VOLUMES 
VOLUME  XII. 


AiOFFITT  •  wV*2 


Copyright,  1850,  1852,  1862,  and  1876. 

NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE,  TICKNOR  &  FIELDS,  AND 
JAMES   R.  OSGOOD   &   CO. 

Copyright,  1878, 
BY  ROSE   HAWTHORNE   LATIIROP. 

Copyright,  1883, 
BY  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 


All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass  ,   U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Company. 


A3 


CONTENTS. 


PASK 

INTRODUCTORY  SKETCH 7 

TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 
SKETCHES  FROM  MEMORY. 

I.    THE  INLAND  PORT.        ......  13 

II.    ROCHESTER         .        .        .        .        .  •  •     .        .        .17 

III.  A  NIGHT  SCENE 21 

FRAGMENTS  FROM  THE  JOURNAL  OF  A  SOLITARY  MAN. 

I .   .  .  23 

II.    MY  HOME  RETURN            35 

MY  VISIT  TO  NIAGARA .  42 

THE  ANTIQUE  RING         . 51 

GRAVES  AND  GOBLINS 68 

DR.  BULLIVANT 78 

A  BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS      .......  88 

AN  OLD  WOMAN'S  TALE           .......  109 

TIME'S  PORTRAITURE.  —  ADDRESS        .        .        .        .        .  121 

"BROWNE'S  FOLLY"          ........  131 

BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

BENJAMIN  WEST 144 

SIR  ISAAC  NEWTON        .        .        .    •   .        .        .        .        .  157 

SAMUEL  JOHNSON 166 

OLIVER  CROMWELL        ........  178 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 189 

QUEEN  CHRISTINA 203 


vi  CONTENTS. 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES. 

MRS.  HUTCHINSON 217 

SIR  WILLIAM  PHIPS 227 

SIR  WILLIAM  PEPPERELL 235 

THOMAS  GREEN  FESSENDEN          .        .        .        .        .        •  246 

JONATHAN  CILLEY •  264 

ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL        .     ' J.'    -    .     '  •        .       .       .  279 

CHIEFLY  ABOUT  WAR  MATTERS 299 

LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE 347 

SKETCH  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE     .       ,441 


INTRODUCTORY   NOTE. 


TALES,   SKETCHES,  ETC. 

THE  first  group  of  short  pieces  embraced  in  this  vol 
ume  belongs  to  Hawthorne's  earlier  period;  excepting 
"Browne's  Folly,"  which  was  addressed  to  the  author's 
cousin,  Mr.  Richard  Manning,  of  Salem,  after  the  re 
turn  from  Europe.  The  "  Sketches  from  Memory," 
like  those  in  the  "  Mosses,"  and  one  in  "  The  Snow- 
Image,"  reveal  the  fact  that,  at  some  time  in  his  bach 
elor  life,  Hawthorne  made  a  trip  through  portions  of 
New  York ;  but  of  this  journey  no  other  data  have 
ever  come  to  the  editor's  knowledge.  He  took  a  little 
tour  in  1830  or  1831,  or  perhaps  in  both  years,  in  Con 
necticut,  Western  Massachusetts,  and  in  New  Hamp 
shire  ;  and  it  was  perhaps  at  this  time  that  he  crossed 
the  boundary  into  New  York.  The  "Journal  of  a 
Solitary  Man  "  and  "  My  Home  Return  "  may  not  im 
probably  be  connected  with  the  narrative  of  "The 
Story-Teller"  which  Hawthorne  had  planned  as  an 
accompaniment  to  the  "  Twice -Told  Tales."  1  All  the 
youthful  pieces  here  preserved  had  been  left  in  the  ob 
scurity  of  old  periodicals,  their  very  existence  possibly 
forgotten  by  the  author  himself,  and  were  gradually 
discovered  during  the  five  or  six  years  immediately 
following  his  death. 

1  See  the  editor's  Introductory  Note  to  the  Twice-Told  Tales. 


8  INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 

In  June,  1837,  Hawthorne,  writing  to  Longfellow, 
had  observed :  "  I  can  turn  my  attention  to  all  sorts 
of  drudgery,  such  as  children's  books,  etc."  One 
among  several  outgrowths  of  the  ability  he  referred  to 
was  the  group  of  "  Biographical  Stories  "  in  the  pres 
ent  volume,  hitherto  included  with  "  Grandfather's 
Chair,"  under  the  general  heading  of  "  True  Stories," 
That  he  regarded  the  writing  of  them  as  in  one  sense 
drudgery,  as  a  performance  which  would  not  have  been 
undertaken  but  for  the  necessity  of  earning  a  liveli 
hood  by  his  pen,  appears  probable  from  a  letter  which 
he  addressed  with  the  MS.  of  "  Queen  Christina "  to 
the  conductress  of  a  periodical  in  Northern  New  York. 
Of  this  letter,  which  has  been  inaccessible  for  a  long 
time,  the  date  (according  to  the  editor's  remembrance) 
was  about  two  years  after  that  of  the  one  to  Longfellow 
just  mentioned ;  and  the  terms  in  which  it  was  couched 
left  the  impression  that  Hawthorne  was  then  much  in 
need  of  employment.  We  must  not,  however,  forget 
his  own  statement  in  the  brief  note  prefixed  to  the 
stories,  that  "  this  small  volume  and  others  of  a  simi 
lar  character  .  .  .  have  not  been  composed  without  a 
deep  sense  of  responsibility."  Indeed,  whatever  he 
wrote  for  children  Hawthorne  prepared  with  as  much 
conscientiousness  as  the  matter  which  he  offered  to  a 
mature  audience ;  and,  conversely,  his  stories  for  older 
readers  were  invested  with  such  a  refinement  of  sim 
plicity  that  they  were  often  well  suited  for  children. 
A  circumstance  illustrating  this  is  that  "  The  Lily's 
Quest,"  afterwards  issued  in  the  second  series  of 
"Twice-Told  Tales,"  was  first  printed  (January  19, 
1839)  in  "  The  Southern  Hose,"  a  weekly  paper  for 
young  readers,  published  at  Charleston,  South  Caro 
lina. 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE.  0 

The  "Biographical  Sketches,"  that  follow  next  in 
the  order  of  contents,  appear  here  as  the  result  of  a 
gleaning  from  old  magazines,  which  was  made  after 
Hawthorne's  death.  Designed  to  fulfil  purposes  of  the 
moment,  they  are  of  course  not  to  be  placed  in  the 
same  category  with  the  purely  literary  work  which  he 
acknowledged.  Nevertheless,  the  papers  upon  Mrs. 
Hutchinson,  Sir  William  Phips,  and  Sir  William  Pep- 
perell,  are  valuable  as  evidences  of  the  study  which  he 
devoted  to  passages  in  the  history  of  New  England ; 
study  largely  instrumental  in  developing  that  innate 
knowledge  of  his  native  region  which  gives  perennial 
force  to  the  picture  presented  in  "  The  Scarlet  Let 
ter."  The  outline  of  Jonathan  Cilley's  career  shows 
how  active  had  been  his  observation  of  a  classmate  in 
college. 

"  Alice  Doane's  Appeal,"  one  of  the  two  remaining 
contributions,  was  apparently  overlooked  until  the  pres 
ent  editor,  coming  upon  its  traces,  secured  a  copy  of  it 
in  "  The  Token  "  for  1835,  after  a  three  years'  search. 
Hawthorne's  surviving  sister,  Miss  Elizabeth  Manning 
Hawthorne,  who  died  (January  1,  1883)  after  this 
edition  of  the  Works  had  made  considerable  headway, 
informed  the  editor  that  she  retained  some  recollection 
of  the  story ;  and  it  seems  probable,  from  an  allusion 
in  the  opening  portion,  that  the  form  here  preserved 
embodies  a  reminiscence  of  one  among  those  "  Seven 
Tales  of  my  Native  Land  "  which  the  author  burned 
in  manuscript.  The  chapter  entitled  "  Chiefly  about 
War  Matters "  was  published  in  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly  "  soon  after  a  trip  to  Washington  which  Haw 
thorne  made  in  April,  1862.  It  now  first  takes  its 
place  among  his  collected  writings.  The  same  thing 
is  to  be  said  of  the  "Life  of  Franklin  Pierce,"  re- 


10  INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 

printed  in  the  present  volume.  It  has  been  thought 
advisable  to  include  this  pamphlet,  which  accordingly 
appears  in  its  original  form,  with  the  exception  of  one 
omitted  passage,  consisting  of  extracts  from  General 
Pierce's  Diary  during  the  Mexican  War. 

With  this  Introductory  Note  the  editor's  task  comes 
to  an  end.  Slight  though  the  result  must  appear,  no 
little  labor  and  care  have  been  involved  in  carrying 
out  the  original  purpose  of  the  Notes,  which  was  to 
present,  at  suitable  points  and  without  wearying  the 
general  reader  by  bibliographical  details,  a  brief  com- 
pend  of  facts  with  regard  to  each  work  or  collection 
in  the  series. 

G.P.L. 

NEW  YORK,  May  1, 1883. 


TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMORY-1 


i. 

THE  INLAND  PORT. 

IT  was  a  bright  forenoon,  when  I  set  foot  on  the 
beach  at  Burlington,  and  took  leave  of  the  two  boat 
men  in  whose  little  skiff  I  had  voyaged  since  daylight 
from  Peru.  Not  that  we  had  come  that  morning  from 
South  America,  but  only  from  the  New  York  shore  of 
Lake  Champlain.  The  highlands  of  the  coast  behind 
us  stretched  north  and  south,  in  a  double  range  of 
bold,  blue  peaks,  gazing  over  each  other's  shoulders  at 
the  Green  Mountains  of  Vermont. 

The  latter  are  far  the  loftiest,  and,  from  the  oppo 
site  side  of  the  lake,  had  displayed  a  more  striking 
outline.  We  were  now  almost  at  their  feet,  and  could 
see  only  a  sandy  beach  sweeping  beneath  a  woody 
bank,  around  the  semicircular  Bay  of  Burlington. 

The  painted  light-house  on  a  small  green  island,  the 
wharves  and  warehouses,  with  sloops  and  schooners 
moored  alongside,  or  at  anchor,  or  spreading  their  can 
vas  to  the  wind,  and  boats  rowing  from  point  to  point, 
reminded  me  of  some  fishing-town  on  the  sea-coast. 

But  I  had  no  need  of  tasting  the  water  to  convince 
myself  that  Lake  Champlain  was  not  an  arm  of  the 

1  Second  series.  The  first  series  was  added  to  the  revised  edition 
of  the  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse. 


14  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

sea ;  its  quality  was  evident,  both  by  its  silvery  sur 
face,  when  unruffled,  and  a  faint  but  unpleasant  and 
sickly  smell,  forever  steaming  up  in  the  sunshine.  One 
breeze  of  the  Atlantic  with  its  briny  fragrance  would 
be  worth  more  to  these  inland  people  than  all  the  per 
fumes  of  Arabia.  On  closer  inspection  the  vessels  at 
the  wharves  looked  hardly  seaworthy,  —  there  being 
a  great  lack  of  tar  about  the  seams  and  rigging,  and 
perhaps  other  deficiencies,  quite  as  much  to  the  purpose. 

I  observed  not  a  single  ^  sailor  in  the  port.  There 
were  men,  indeed,  in  blue  jackets  and  trousers,  but  not 
of  the  true  nautical  fashion,  such  as  dangle  before  slop 
shops  ;  others  wore  tight  pantaloons  and  coats  prepon- 
derously  long-tailed, — cutting  very  queer  figures  at  the 
masthead ;  and,  in  short,  these  fresh-water  fellows  had 
about  the  same  analogy  to  the  real  "  old  salt "  with  his 
tarpaulin,  pea-jacket,  and  sailor-cloth  trousers,  as  a 
lake  fish  to  a  Newfoundland  cod. 

Nothing  struck  me  more  in  Burlington  than  the 
great  number  of  Irish  emigrants.  They  have  filled 
the  British  Provinces  to  the  brim,  and  still  continue  to 
ascend  the  St.  Lawrence  in  infinite  tribes  overflowing 
by  every  outlet  into  the  States.  At  Burlington,  they 
swarm  in  huts  and  mean  dwellings  near  the  lake,  lounge 
about  the  wharves,  and  elbow  the  native  citizens  en 
tirely  out  of  competition  in  their  own  line.  Every 
species  of  mere  bodily  labor  is  the  prerogative  of  these 
Irish.  Such  is  their  multitude  in  comparison  with 
any  possible  demand  for  their  services,  that  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  conceive  how  a  third  part  of  them  should  earn 
even  a  daily  glass  of  whiskey,  which  is  doubtless  their 
first  necessary  of  life,  —  daily  bread  being  only  the 
second. 

Some  were  angling  in  the  lake,  but  had  caught  only 


THE  INLAND  PORT.  15 

a  few  perch,  which  little  fishes,  without  a  miracle, 
would  be  nothing  among  so  many.  A  miracle  there 
certainly  must  have  been,  and  a  daily  one,  for  the  sub 
sistence  of  these  wandering  hordes.  The  men  exhibit 
a  lazy  strength  and  careless  merriment,  as  if  they  had 
fed  well  hitherto,  and  meant  to  feed  better  hereafter ; 
the  women  strode  about,  uncovered  in  the  open  air, 
with  far  plumper  waists  and  brawnier  limbs  as  well  as 
bolder  faces,  than  our  shy  and  slender  females ;  and 
their  progeny,  which  was  innumerable,  had  the  reddest 
and  the  roundest  cheeks  of  any  children  in  America. 

While  we  stood  at  the  wharf,  the  bell  of  a  steam 
boat  gave  two  preliminary  peals,  and  she  dashed  away 
for  Plattsburg,  leaving  a  trail  of  smoky  breath  behind, 
and  breaking  the  glassy  surface  of  the  lake  before  her. 
Our  next  movement  brought  us  into  a  handsome  and 
busy  square,  the  sides  of  which  were  filled  up  with 
white  houses,  brick  stores,  a  church,  a  court-house,  and 
a  bank.  Some  of  these  edifices  had  roofs  of  tin,  in 
the  fashion  of  Montreal,  and  glittered  in  the  sun  with 
cheerful  splendor,  imparting  a  lively  effect  to  the  whole 
square.  One  brick  building,  designated  in  large  let 
ters  as  the  custom  house,  reminded  us  that  this  inland 
village  is  a  port  of  entry,  largely  concerned  in  foreign 
trade,  and  holding  daily  intercourse  with  the  British 
empire.  In  this  border  country  the  Canadian  bank 
notes  circulate  as  freely  as  our  own,  and  British  and 
American  coin  are  jumbled  into  the  same  pocket,  the 
effigies  of  the  King  of  England  being  made  to  kiss 
those  of  the  Goddess  of  Liberty. 

Perhaps  there  was  an  emblem  in  the  involuntary 
contact.  There  was  a  pleasant  mixture  of  people  in 
the  square  of  Burlington,  such  as  cannot  be  seen  else 
where,  at  one  view  ;  merchants  from  Montreal,  British 


16  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

officers  from  the  frontier  garrisons,  French  Canadians, 
wandering  Irish,  Scotchmen  of  a  better  class,  gentle 
men  of  the  South  on  a  pleasure  tour,  country  squires 
on  business ;  and  a  great  throng  of  Green  Mountain 
boys,  with  their  horse-wagons  and  ox-teams,  true  Yan 
kees  in  aspect,  and  looking  more  superlatively  so,  by 
contrast  with  such  a  variety  of  foreigners. 


II. 

,  ROCHESTEK. 

THE  gray  but  transparent  evening  rather  shaded 
than  obscured  the  scene,  leaving  its  stronger  features 
visible,  and  even  improved  by  the  medium  through 
which  I  beheld  them.  The  volume  of  water  is  not 
very  great,  nor  the  roar  deep  enough  to  be  termed 
grand,  though  such  praise  might  have  been  appropri 
ate  before  the  good  people  of  Kochester  had  abstracted 
a  part  of  the  unprofitable  sublimity  of  the  cascade. 
The  Genesee  has  contributed  so  bountifully  to  their 
canals  and  mill-dams,  that  it  approaches  the  precipice 
with  diminished  pomp,  and  rushes  over  it  in  foamy 
streams  of  various  width,  leaving  a  broad  face  of  the 
rock  insulated  and  unwashed,  between  the  two  main 
branches  of  the  falling  river.  Still  it  was  an  impres 
sive  sight,  to  one  who  had  not  seen  Niagara.  I  con 
fess,  however,  that  my  chief  interest  arose  from  a 
legend,  connected  with  these  falls,  which  will  become 
poetical  in  the  lapse  of  years,  and  was  already  so  to 
me  as  I  pictured  the  catastrophe  out  of  dusk  and  soli 
tude.  It  was  from  a  platform,  raised  over  the  naked 
island  of  the  cliff,  in  the  middle  of  the  cataract,  that 
Sam  Patch  took  his  last  leap,  and  alighted  in  the 
other  world.  Strange  as  it  may  appear,  —  that  any 
uncertainty  should  rest  upon  his  fate  which  was  con 
summated  in  the  sight  of  thousands,  —  many  will  tell 
you  that  the  illustrious  Patch  concealed  himself  in  a 

VOL.  XII.  2 


18  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

cave  under  the  falls,  and  has  continued  to  enjoy  post 
humous  renown,  without  foregoing  the  comforts  of  this 
present  life.  But  the  poor  fellow  prized  the  shout  of 
the  multitude  too  much  not  to  have  claimed  it  at  the 
instant,  had  he  survived.  He  will  not  be  seen  again, 
unless  his  ghost,  in  such  a  twilight  as  when  I  was 
there,  should  emerge  from  the  foam,  and  vanish  among 
the  shadows  that  fall  from  cliff  to  cliff. 

How  stern  a  moral  may  be  drawn  from  the  story  of 
poor  Sam  Patch  !  Why  do  we  call  him  a  madman  or 
a  fool,  when  he  has  left  his  memory  around  the  falls 
of  the  Genesee,  more  permanently  than  if  the  letters 
of  his  name  had  been  hewn  into  the  forehead  of  the 
precipice  ? 

Was  the  leaper  of  cataracts  more  mad  or  foolish 
than  other  men  who  throw  away  life,  or  misspend  it  in 
pursuit  of  empty  fame,  and  seldom  so  triumphantly  as 
he  ?  That  which  he  won  is  as  invaluable  as  any  ex 
cept  the  unsought  glory,  spreading  like  the  rich  per 
fume  of  richer  fruit  from  various  and  useful  deeds. 

Thus  musing,  wise  in  theory,  but  practically  as 
great  a  fool  as  Sam,  I  lifted  my  eyes  and  beheld  the 
spires,  warehouses,  and  dwellings  of  Eochester,  half  a 
mile  distant  on  both  sides  of  the  river,  indistinctly 
cheerful,  with  the  twinkling  of  many  lights  amid  the 
fall  of  the  evening.  .  .  . 

The  town  had  sprung  up  like  a  mushroom,  but  no 
presage  of  decay  could  be  drawn  from  its  hasty 
growth.  Its  edifices  are  of  dusky  brick,  and  of  stone 
that  will  not  be  grayer  in  a  hundred  years  than  now ; 
its  churches  are  Gothic  ;  it  is  impossible  to  look  at  its 
worn  pavements  and  conceive  how  lately  the  forest 
leaves  have  been  swept  away.  The  most  ancient  town 
in  Massachusetts  appears  quite  like  an  affair  of  yester- 


ROCHESTER.  19 

day,  compared  with  Eocliester.  Its  attributes  of  youth 
are  the  activity  and  eager  life  with  which  it  is  redun 
dant.  The  whole  street,  sidewalks  and  centre,  was 
crowded  with  pedestrians,  horsemen,  stage-coaches, 
gigs,  light  wagons,  and  heavy  ox-teams,  all  hurrying, 
trotting,  rattling,  and  rumbling,  in  a  throng  that 
passed  continually,  but  never  passed  away.  Here,  a 
country  wife  was  selecting  a  churn  from  several  gayly 
painted  ones  on  the  sunny  sidewalk ;  there,  a  farmer 
was  bartering  his  produce ;  and,  in  two  or  three  places, 
a  crowd  of  people  were  showering  bids  on  a  vocifer 
ous  auctioneer.  I  saw  a  great  wagon  and  an  ox-chain 
knocked  off  to  a  very  pretty  woman.  Numerous  were 
the  lottery  offices,  —  those  true  temples  of  Mammon, 
—  where  red  and  yellow  bills  offered  splendid  fortunes 
to  the  world  at  large,  and  banners  of  painted  cloth 
gave  notice  that  the  "  lottery  draws  next  Wednesday." 
At  the  ringing  of  a  bell,  judges,  jurymen,  lawyers, 
and  clients,  elbowed  each  other  to  the  court-house,  to 
busy  themselves  with  cases  that  would  doubtless  il 
lustrate  the  state  of  society,  had  I  the  means  of  re 
porting  them.  The  number  of  public  houses  benefited 
the  flow  of  temporary  population ;  some  were  farmer's 
taverns,  —  cheap,  homely,  and  comfortable  ;  others 
were  magnificent  hotels,  with  negro  waiters,  gentle 
manly  landlords  in  black  broadcloth,  and  foppish  bar 
keepers  in  Broadway  coats,  with  chased  gold  watches 
in  their  waistcoat-pockets.  I  caught  one  of  these  fel 
lows  quizzing  me  through  an  eye-glass.  The  porters 
were  lumbering  up  the  steps  with  baggage  from  the 
packet  boats,  while  waiters  plied  the  brush  on  dusty 
travellers,  who,  meanwhile,  glanced  over  the  innumer 
able  advertisements  in  the  daily  papers. 

In  short,  everybody  seemed  to  be  there,  and  all  had 


20  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

something  to  do,  and  were  doing  it  with  all  their 
might,  except  a  party  of  drunken  recruits  for  the  West 
ern  military  posts,  principally  Irish  and  Scotch, 
though  they  wore  Uncle  Sam's  gray  jacket  and  trou 
sers.  I  noticed  one  other  idle  man.  He  carried  a 
rifle  on  his  shoulder  and  a  powder-horn  across  his 
breast,  and  appeared  to  stare  about  him  with  confused 
wonder,  as  if,  while  he  was  listening  to  the  wind 
among  the  forest  boughs,  the  hum  and  bustle  of  an  in 
stantaneous  city  had  surrounded  him.  .  .  . 


in. 

A   NIGHT   SCENE. 

THE  steamboat  in  which  I  was  passenger  for  De 
troit  had  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  small  river,  where 
the  greater  part  of  the  night  would  be  spent  in  repair 
ing  some  damages  of  the  machinery. 

As  the  evening  was  warm,  though  cloudy  and  very 
dark,  I  stood  on  deck,  watching  a  scene  that  would 
not  have  attracted  a  second  glance  in  the  daytime,  but 
became  picturesque  by  the  magic  of  strong  light  and 
deep  shade. 

Some  wild  Irishmen  were  replenishing  our  stock  of 
wood,  and  had  kindled  a  great  fire  on  the  bank  to 
illuminate  their  labors.  It  was  composed  of  large 
logs  and  dry  brushwood,  heaped  together  with  care 
less  profusion,  blazing  fiercely,  spouting  showers  of 
sparks  into  the  darkness,  and  gleaming  wide  over 
Lake  Erie,  —  a  beacon  for  perplexed  voyagers  leagues 
from  land. 

All  around  and  above  the  furnace  there  was  total 
obscurity.  No  trees  or  other  objects  caught  and  re 
flected  any  portion  of  the  brightness,  which  thus 
wasted  itself  in  the  immense  void  of  night,  as  if  it 
quivered  from  the  expiring  embers  of  the  world,  after 
the  final  conflagration.  But  the  Irishmen  were  con 
tinually  emerging  from  the  dense  gloom,  passing 
through  the  lurid  glow,  and  vanishing  into  the  gloom 
on  the  other  side.  Sometimes  a  whole  figure  would 


22  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

be  made  visible,  by  the  shirt-sleeves  and  light-colored 
dress ;  others  were  but  half  seen,  like  imperfect  crea 
tures  ;  many  flitted,  shadow-like,  along  the  skirts  of 
darkness,  tempting  fancy  to  a  vain  pursuit ;  and  often, 
a  face  alone  was  reddened  by  the  fire,  and  stared 
strangely  distinct,  with  no  traces  of  a  body.  In  short 
these  wild  Irish,  distorted  and  exaggerated  by  the 
blaze,  now  lost  in  deep  shadow,  now  bursting  into 
sudden  splendor,  and  now  struggling  between  light 
and  darkness,  formed  a  picture  which  might  have 
been  transferred,  almost  unaltered,  to  a  tale  of  the 
supernatural.  As  they  all  carried  lanterns  of  wood, 
and  often  flung  sticks  upon  the  fire,  the  least  imagi 
native  spectator  would  at  once  compare  them  to  devils 
condemned  to  keep  alive  the  flames  of  their  own  tor 
ments. 


FRAGMENTS  FROM  THE  JOURNAL  OF  A  SOLI 
TARY  MAN. 


MY  poor  friend  "  Oberon " l  —  for  let  me  be  al 
lowed  to  distinguish  him  by  so  quaint  a  name  —  sleeps 
with  the  silent  ages.  He  died  calmly.  Though  his 
disease  was  pulmonary,  his  life  did  not  flicker  out  like 
a  wasted  lamp,  sometimes  shooting  up  into  a  strange 
temporary  brightness;  but  the  tide  of  being  ebbed 
away,  and  the  noon  of  his  existence  waned  till,  in  the 
simple  phraseology  of  Scripture,  "  he  was  not."  The 
last  words  he  said  to  me  were,  "  Burn  my  papers,  — 
all  that  you  can  find  in  yonder  escritoire  ;  for  I  fear 
there  are  some  there  which  you  may  be  betrayed  into 
publishing.  I  have  published  enough  ;  as  for  the  old 
disconnected  journal  in  your  possession" —  But  here 
my  poor  friend  was  checked  in  his  utterance  by  that 
same  hollow  cough  which  would  never  let  him  alone. 
So  he  coughed  himself  tired,  and  sank  to  slumber.  I 
watched  from  that  midnight  hour  till  high  noon  on  the 
morrow  for  his  waking.  The  chamber  was  dark ;  till, 
longing  for  light,  I  opened  the  window  -  shutter,  and 
the  broad  day  looked  in  on  the  marble  features  of  the 
dead. 

I  religiously  obeyed  his  instructions  with  regard  to 
the  papers  in  the  escritoire,  and  burned  them  in  a  heap 

1  See  the  sketch  or  story  entitled  The  Devil  in  Manuscript,  in  Ths 
Snow-Image,  and  other  Twice-Told  Tales. 


24  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

without  looking  into  one,  though  sorely  tempted.  But 
the  old  journal  I  kept.  Perhaps  in  strict  conscience  I 
ought  also  to  have  burned  that;  but  casting  my  eye 
over  some  half-torn  leaves  the  other  day,  I  could  not 
resist  an  impulse  to  give  some  fragments  of  it  to  the 
public.  To  do  this  satisfactorily,  I  am  obliged  to  twist 
this  thread,  so  as  to  string  together  into  a  semblance 
of  order  my  Oberon's  "  random  pearls." 

If  anybody  that  holds  any  commerce  with  his  fel 
low-men  can  be  called  solitary,  Oberon  was  a  "  solitary 
man."  He  lived  in  a  small  village  at  some  distance 
from  the  metropolis,  and  never  came  up  to  the  city  ex 
cept  once  in  three  months  for  the  purpose  of  looking 
into  a  bookstore,  and  of  spending  two  hours  and  a 
half  with  me.  In  that  space  of  time  I  would  tell  him 
all  that  I  could  remember  of  interest  which  had  oc 
curred  in  the  interim  of  his  visits.  He  would  join 
very  heartily  in  the  conversation  ;  but  as  soon  as  the 
time  of  his  usual  tarrying  had  elapsed,  he  would  take 
up  his  hat  and  depart.  He  was  unequivocally  the 
most  original  person  I  ever  knew.  His  style  of  com 
position  was  very  charming.  No  tales  that  have  ever 
appeared  in  our  popular  journals  have  been  so  gener 
ally  admired  as  his.  But  a  sadness  was  on  his  spirit ; 
and  this,  added  to  the  shrinking  sensitiveness  of  his 
nature,  rendered  him  not  misanthropic,  but  singularly 
averse  to  social  intercourse.  Of  the  disease,  which 
was  slowly  sapping  the  springs  of  his  life,  he  first  be 
came  fully  conscious  after  one  of  those  long  abstrac 
tions  in  which  he  was  wont  to  indulge.  It  is  remark 
able,  however,  that  his  first  idea  of  this  sort,  instead 
of  deepening  his  spirit  with  a  more  melancholy  hue, 
restored  him  to  a  more  natural  state  of  mind. 

He  had  evidently  cherished  a  secret  hope  that  some 


JOURNAL   OF  A   SOLITARY  MAN.  25 

impulse**  would  at  length  be  given  him,  or  that  he 
would  muster  sufficient  energy  of  will  to  return  into 
the  world,  and  act  a  wiser  and  happier  part  than  his 
former  one.  But  life  never  called  the  dreamer  forth  ; 
it  was  Death  that  whispered  him.  It  is  to  be  regret 
ted  that  this  portion  of  his  old  journal  contains  so 
few  passages  relative  to  this  interesting  period  ;  since 
the  little  which  he  has  recorded,  though  melancholy 
enough,  breathes  the  gentleness  of  a  spirit  newly  re 
stored  to  communion  with  its  kind.  If  there  be  any 
thing  bitter  in  the  following  reflections,  its  source  is 
in  human  sympathy,  and  its  sole  object  is  himself. 

"  It  is  hard  to  die  without  one's  happiness  ;  to  none 
more  so  than  myself,  whose  early  resolution  it  had 
been  to  partake  largely  of  the  joys  of  life,  but  never 
to  be  burdened  with  its  cares.  Vain  philosophy  !  The 
very  hardships  of  the  poorest  laborer,  whose  whole  ex 
istence  seems  one  long  toil,  has  something  preferable 
to  my  best  pleasures. 

"  Merely  skimming  the  surface  of  life,  I  know  noth 
ing,  by  my  own  experience,  of  its  deep  and  warm  reali 
ties.  I  have  achieved  none  of  these  objects  which  the 
instinct  of  mankind  especially  prompts  them  to  pur 
sue,  and  the  accomplishment  of  which  must  therefore 
beget  a  native  satisfaction.  The  truly  wise,  after  all 
their  speculations,  wL'l  be  led  into  the  common  path, 
and,  in  homage  to  the  human  nature  that  pervades 
them,  will  gather  gold,  and  till  the  earth,  and  set  out 
trees,  and  build  a  house.  But  I  have  scorned  such 
wisdom.  I  have  rejected,  also,  the  settled,  sober,  care 
ful  gladness  of  a  man  by  his  own  fireside,  with  those 
around  him  whose  welfare  is  committed  to  his  trust, 
and  all  their  guidance  to  his  fond  authority.  Without 
influence  among  serious  affairs,  my  footsteps  were  not 


26  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

imprinted  on  the  earth,  but  lost  in  air  ;  antl  i  shall 
leave  no  son  to  inherit  my  share  of  life,  with  a  bet 
ter  sense  of  its  privileges  and  duties,  when  his  father 
should  vanish  like  a  bubble ;  so  that  few  mortals,  even 
the  humblest  and  the  weakest,  have  been  such  inef 
fectual  shadows  in  the  world,  or  die  so  utterly  as  I 
must.  Even  a  young  man's  bliss  has  not  been  mine. 
With  a  thousand  vagrant  fantasies,  I  have  never  truly 
loved,  and  perhaps  shall  be  doomed  to  loneliness 
throughout  the  eternal  future,  because,  here  on  earth, 
my  soul  has  never  married  itself  to  the  soul  of  woman. 
"  Such  are  the  repinings  of  one  who  feels,  too  late, 
that  the  sympathies  of  his  nature  have  avenged  them 
selves  upon  him.  They  have  prostrated,  with  a  joy 
less  life  and  the  prospect  of  a  reluctant  death,  my  self 
ish  purpose  to  keep  aloof  from  mortal  disquietudes, 
and  be  a  pleasant  idler  among  care-stricken  and  labo 
rious  men.  I  have  other  regrets,  too,  savoring  more  of 
my  old  spirit.  The  time  has  been  when  I  meant  to 
visit  every  region  of  the  earth,  except  the  poles  and 
Central  Africa.  I  had  a  strange  longing  to  see  the 
Pyramids.  To  Persia  and  Arabia,  and  all  the  gor 
geous  East,  I  owed  a  pilgrimage  for  the  sake  of  their 
magic  tales.  And  England,  the  land  of  my  ancestors  ! 
Once  I  had  fancied  that  my  sleep  would  not  be  quiet 
in  the  grave  unless  I  should  return,  as  it  were,  to  my 
home  of  past  ages,  and  see  the  very  cities,  and  castles, 
and  battle-fields  of  history,  and  stand  within  the  holy 
gloom  of  its  cathedrals,  and  kneel  at  the  shrines  of  its 
immortal  poets,  there  asserting  myself  their  hereditary 
countryman.  This  feeling  lay  among  the  deepest  in 
my  heart.  Yet,  with  this  homesickness  for  the  father 
land,  and  all  these  plans  of  remote  travel,  —  which  I 
yet  believe  that  my  peculiar  instinct  impelled  me  to 


JOURNAL    )F  A    SOLITARY  MAN.  27 

f onn,  arid  upbraided  me  for  not  accomplishing,  —  the 
utmost  limit  of  my  wanderings  has  been  little  more 
than  six  hundred  miles  from  my  native  village.  Thus, 
in  whatever  way  I  consider  my  life,  or  what  must  be 
termed  such,  I  cannot  feel  as  if  I  had  lived  at  all. 

"  I  am  possessed,  also,  with  the  thought  that  I  have 
never  yet  discovered  the  real  secret  of  my  powers ;  that 
there  has  been  a  mighty  treasure  within  my  reach,  a 
mine  of  gold  beneath  my  feet,  worthless  because  I 
have  never  known  how  to  seek  for  it ;  and  for  want  of 
perhaps  one  fortunate  idea,  I  am  to  die 

'  Unwept,  unliDuored,  and  unsung.' 

"Once,  amid  the  troubled  and  tumultuous  enjoy 
ment  of  my  life,  there  was  a  dreamy  thought  that 
haunted  me,  —  the  terrible  necessity  imposed  on  mor 
tals  to  grow  old,  or  die.  I  could  not  bear  the  idea  of 
losing  one  youthful  grace.  True,  I  saw  other  men  who 
had  once  been  young  and  now  were  old,  enduring 
their  age  with  equanimity,  because  each  year  recon 
ciled  them  to  its  own  added  weight.  But  for  myself, 
I  felt  that  age  would  be  not  less  miserable,  creeping 
upon  me  slowly,  than  if  it  fell  at  once.  I  sometimes 
looked  in  the  glass,  and  endeavored  to  fancy  my 
cheeks  yellow  and  interlaced  with  furrows,  my  fore 
head  wrinkled  deeply  across,  the  top  of  my  head  bald 
and  polished,  my  eyebrows  and  side-locks  iron  gray, 
and  a  grisly  beard  sprouting  on  my  chin.  Shudder 
ing  at  the  picture,  I  changed  it  for  the  dead  face  of  a 
young  man,  with  dark  locks  clustering  heavily  round 
its  pale  beauty,  which  would  decay,  indeed,  but  not 
with  years,  nor  in  the  sight  of  men.  The  latter  visage 
shocked  me  least. 

"  Such  a  repugnance  to  the  hard  conditions  of  long 


28  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

life  is  common  to  all  sensitive  and  thoughtful  men, 

O 

who  minister  to  the  luxury,  the  refinements,  the  gay- 
ety  and  lightsomeness,  to  anything,  in  short,  but  the 
real  necessities  of  their  fellow-creatures.  He  who  has 
a  part  in  the  serious  business  of  life,  though  it  be  only 
as  a  shoemaker,  feels  himself  equally  respectable  in 
youth  and  in  age,  and  therefore  is  content  to  live  and 
look  forward  to  wrinkles  and  decrepitude  in  their  due 
season.  It  is  far  otherwise  with  the  busy  idlers  of  the 
world.  I  was  particularly  liable  to  this  torment,  being 
a  meditative  person  in  spite  of  my  levity.  The  truth 
could  not  be  concealed,  nor  the  contemplation  of  it 
avoided.  With  deep  inquietude  I  became  aware  that 
what  was  graceful  now,  and  seemed  appropriate  enough 
to  my  age  of  flowers,  would  be  ridiculous  in  middle 
life;  and  that  the  world,  so  indulgent  to  the  fantastic 
youth,  would  scorn  the  bearded  man,  still  telling  love- 
tales,  loftily  ambitious  of  a  maiden's  tears,  and  squeez 
ing  out,  as  it  were,  with  his  brawny  strength,  the  es 
sence  of  roses.  And  in  his  old  age  the  sweet  lyrics  of 
Anacreon  made  the  girls  laugh  at  his  white  hairs  the 
more.  With  such  sentiments,  conscious  that  my  part 
in  the  drama  of  life  was  fit  only  for  a  youthful  per 
former,  I  nourished  a  regretful  desire  to  be  summoned 
early  from  the  scene.  I  set  a  limit  to  myself,  the  ago 
of  twenty-five,  few  years  indeed,  but  too  many  to  be 
thrown  away.  Scarcely  had  I  thus  fixed  the  term  of 
my  mortal  pilgrimage,  than  the  thought  grew  into  a 
presentiment  that,  when  the  space  should  be  com 
pleted,  the  world  would  have  one  butterfly  the  less,  by 
my  far  flight. 

"  Oh,  how  fond  I  was  of  life,  even  while  allotting, 
as  my  proper  destiny,  an  early  death!  I  loved  the 
world,  its  cities,  its  villages,  its  grassy  roadsides,  its 


JOURNAL   OF  A    SOLITARY  MAN.  29 

wild  forests,  its  quiet  scenes,  its  gay,  warm,  enlivening 
bustle  ;  in  every  aspect,  I  loved  the  world  so  long  as 
I  could  behold  it  with  young  eyes  and  dance  through 
it  with  a  young  heart.  The  earth  had  been  made 
so  beautiful,  that  I  longed  for  no  brighter  sphere,  but 
only  an  ever  -  youthful  eternity  in  this.  I  clung  to 
earth  as  if  my  beginning  and  ending  were  to  be  there, 
unable  to  imagine  any  but  an  earthly  happiness,  and 
choosing  such,  with  all  its  imperfections,  rather  than 
perfect  bliss,  which  might  be  alien  from  it.  Alas  !  I 
had  not  yet  known  that  weariness  by  which  the  soul 
proves  itself  ethereal." 

Turning  over  the  old  journal,  I  open,  by  chance, 
upon  a  passage  which  affords  a  signal  instance  of  the 
morbid  fancies  to  which  Oberoii  frequently  yielded 
himself.  Dreams  like  the  following  were  probably  en 
gendered  by  the  deep  gloom  sometimes  thrown  over 
his  mind  by  his  reflections  on  death. 

"  I  dreamed  that  one  bright  forenoon  I  was  walking 
through  Broadway,  and  seeking  to  cheer  myself  with 
the  warm  and  busy  life  of  that  far-famed  promenade. 
Here  a  coach  thundered  over  the  pavement,  and  there 
an  unwieldy  omnibus,  with  spruce  gigs  rattling  past, 
and  horsemen  prancing  through  all  the  bustle.  On 
the  sidewalk  people  were  looking  at  the  rich  display 
of  goods,  the  plate  and  jewelry,  or  the  latest  caricature 
in  the  bookseller's  windows ;  while  fair  ladies  and 
whiskered  gentlemen  tripped  gayly  along,  nodding 
mutual  recognitions,  or  shrinking  from  some  rough 
countryman  or  sturdy  laborer,  whose  contact  might 
have  ruffled  their  finery.  I  found  myself  in  this  ani 
mated  scene,  with  a  dim  and  misty  idea  that  it  was 
not  my  proper  place,  or  that  I  had  ventured  into  the 
crowd  with  some  singularity  of  dress  or  aspect  which 


30  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

made  me  ridiculous.  Walking  in  the  sunshine,  I  was 
yet  cold  as  death.  By  degrees,  too,  I  perceived  myself 
the  object  of  universal  attention,  and,  as  it  seemed,  of 
horror  and  affright.  Every  face  grew  pale ;  the  laugh 
was  hushed,  and  the  voices  died  away  in  broken  syl 
lables  ;  the  people  in  the  shops  crowded  to  the  doors 
with  a  ghastly  stare,  and  the  passengers  on  all  sides  fled 
as  from  an  embodied  pestilence.  The  horses  reared 
and  snorted.  An  old  beggar  -  woman  sat  before  St« 
Paul's  Church,  with  her  withered  palm  stretched  out 
to  all,  but  drew  it  back  from  me,  and  pointed  to  the 
graves  and  monuments  in  that  populous  churchyard. 
Three  lovely  girls  whom  I  had  formerly  known,  ran 
shrieking  across  the  street.  A  personage  in  black, 
whom  I  was  about  to  overtake,  suddenly  turned  his 
head  and  showed  the  features  of  a  long-lost  friend. 
He  gave  me  a  look  of  horror  and  was  gone. 

"  I  passed  not  one  step  farther,  but  threw  my  eyes 
on  a  looking-glass  which  stood  deep  within  the  nearest 
shop.  At  first  glimpse  of  my  own  figure  I  awoke,  with 
a  horrible  sensation  of  self  -  terror  and  self  -  loathing. 
No  wonder  that  the  affrighted  city  fled !  I  had  been 
promenading  Broadway  in  my  shroud  !  " 

I  should  be  doing  injustice  to  my  friend's  memory, 
were  I  to  publish  other  extracts  even  nearer  to  insan 
ity  than  this,  from  the  scarcely  legible  papers  before 
me.  I  gather  from  them  —  for  I  do  not  remember 
that  he  ever  related  to  me  the  circumstances  —  that 
he  once  made  a  journey,  chiefly  on  foot,  to  Niagara. 
Some  conduct  of  the  friends  among  whom  he  resided 
in  his  native  village  was  constructed  by  him  into  op 
pression.  These  were  the  friends  to  whose  care  he  had 
been  committed  by  his  parents,  who  died  when  Oberon 
was  about  twelve  years  of  age.  Though  he  had  always 


JOURNAL   OF  A   SOLITARY  MAN.  31 

been  treated  by  them  with  the  most  uniform  kindness, 
and  though  a  favorite  among1  the  people  of  the  village 
rather  on  account  of  the  sympathy  which  they  felt  in 
his  situation  than  from  any  merit  of  his  own,  such  was 
the  waywardness  of  his  temper,  that  on  a  slight  provo 
cation  he  ran  away  from  the  home  that  sheltered  him, 
expressing  openly  his  determination  to  die  sooner  than 
return  to  the  detested  spot.  A  severe  illness  overtook 
him  after  he  had  been  absent  about  four  months. 
While  ill,  he  felt  how  unsoothing  were  the  kindest 
looks  and  tones  of  strangers.  He  rose  from  his  sick 
bed  a  better  man,  and  determined  upon  a  speedy  self- 
atonement  by  returning  to  his  native  town.  There  he 
lived,  solitary  and  sad,  but  forgiven  and  cherished  by 
his  friends,  till  the  day  he  died.  That  part  of  the 
journal  which  contained  a  description  of  this  journey 
is  mostly  destroyed.  Here  and  there  is  a  fragment. 
I  cannot  select,  for  the  pages  are  very  scanty ;  but  I 
do  not  withhold  the  following  fragments,  because  they 
indicate  a  better  and  more  cheerful  frame  of  mind 
than  the  foregoing. 


44  On  reaching  the  ferry-house,  a  rude  structure  of 
boards  at  the  foot  of  the  cliff,  I  found  several  of  those 
wretches  devoid  of  poetry,  and  lost  some  of  my  own 
poetry  by  contact  with  them.  The  hut  was  crowded 
by  a  party  of  provincials,  —  a  simple  and  merry  set, 
who  had  spent  the  afternoon  fishing  near  the  Falls, 
and  were  bartering  black  and  white  bass  and  eels  for 
the  ferryman's  whiskey.  A  greyhound  and  three  span 
iels,  brutes  of  much  more  grace  and  decorous  demeanor 
than  their  masters,  sat  at  the  door.  A  few  yards  off, 
yet  wholly  unnoticed  by  the  dogss  was  a  beautiful  fox, 


32  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

whose  countenance  betokened  all  the  sagacity  attrib 
uted  to  him  in  ancient  fable.  He  had  a  comfortable 
bed  of  straw  in  an  old  barrel,  whither  he  retreated, 
flourishing  his  bushy  tail  as  I  made  a  step  towards 
him,  but  soon  came  forth  and  surveyed  me  with  a  keen 
and  intelligent  eye.  The  Canadians  bartered  their  fish 
and  drank  their  whiskey,  and  were  loquacious  on  tri 
fling  subjects,  and  merry  at  simple  jests,  with  as  little 
regard  to  the  scenery  as  they  could  have  to  the  flattest 
part  of  the  Grand  Canal.  Nor  was  I  entitled  to  de 
spise  them ;  for  I  amused  myself  with  all  those  fool 
ish  matters  of  fishermen,  and  dogs,  and  fox,  just  as  if 
Sublimity  and  Beauty  were  not  married  at  that  place 
and  moment ;  as  if  their  nuptial  band  were  not  tho 
brightest  of  all  rainbows  on  the  opposite  shore ;  as  if 
the  gray  precipice  were  not  frowning  above  my  head 
and  Niagara  thundering  around  me. 

"  The  grim  ferryman,  a  black-whiskered  giant,  half 
drunk  withal,  now  thrust  the  Canadians  by  main  force 
out  of  his  door,  launched  a  boat,  and  bade  me  sit  in 
the  stern  -  sheets.  Where  we  crossed,  the  river  was 
white  with  foam,  yet  did  not  offer  much  resistance  to 
a  straight  passage,  which  brought  us  close  to  the  outer 
edge  of  the  American  Falls.  The  rainbow  vanished 
as  we  neared  its  misty  base,  and  when  I  leaped  ashore, 
the  sun  had  left  all  Niagara  in  shadow." 


"A  sound  of  merriment,  sweet  voices  and  girlish 
laughter,  came  dancing  through  the  solemn  roar  of  wa 
ters.  In  old  times,  when  the  French,  and  afterwards 
the  English,  held  garrisons  near  Niagara,  it  used  to  be 
deemed  a  feat  worthy  of  a  soldier,  a  frontier -man,  or 


JOURNAL   OF  A   SOLITARY  MAN.  33 

an  Indian,  to  cross  the  rapids  to  Goat  Island.  As  the 
country  became  less  rude  and  warlike,  a  long  space  in 
tervened,  in  which  it  was  but  half  believed,  by  a  faint 
and  doubtful  tradition,  that  mortal  foot  had  never  trod 
this  wild  spot  of  precipice  and  forest  clinging  between 
two  cataracts.  The  island  is  no  longer  a  tangled  for 
est,  but  a  grove  of  stately  trees,  with  grassy  intervals 
about  their  roots  and  woodland  paths  among  their 
trunks.  There  was  neither  soldier  nor  Indian  herp 
now,  but  a  vision  of  three  lovely  girls,  running  brief 
races  through  the  broken  sunshine  of  the  grove,  hiding 
behind  the  trees,  and  pelting  each  other  with  the  cones 
of  the  pine.  When  their  sport  had  brought  them  near 
me,  it  so  happened  that  one  of  the  party  ran  up  and 
shook  me  by  the  hand,  —  a  greeting  which  I  heartily 
returned,  and  would  have  done  the  same  had  it  been 
tenderer.  I  had  known  this  wild  little  black-eyed 
lass  in  my  youth  and  her  childhood,  before  I  had  com 
menced  my  rambles. 

"  We  met  on  terms  of  freedom  and  kindness,  which 
elder  ladies  might  have  thought  unsuitable  with  a  gen 
tleman  of  my  description.  When  I  alluded  to  the  two 
fair  strangers,  she  shouted  after  them  by  their  Chris 
tian  names,  at  which  summons,  with  grave  dignity, 
they  drew  near,  and  honored  me  with  a  distant  court 
esy.  They  were  from  the  upper  part  of  Vermont. 
Whether  sisters,  or  cousins,  or  at  all  related  to  each 
other,  I  cannot  tell ;  but  they  are  planted  in  my  mem 
ory  like  '  two  twin  roses  on  one  stem,'  with  the  fresh 
dew  in  both  their  bosoms  ;  and  when  I  would  have 
pure  and  pleasant  thoughts  I  think  of  them.  Neither 
of  them  could  have  seen  seventeen  years.  They  both 
were  of  a  height,  and  that  a  moderate  one.  The  rose- 
bloom  of  the  cheeks  could  hardly  be  called  bright  in 


34  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

her  who  was  the  rosiest,  nor  faint,  though  a  shade  less 
deep,  in  her  companion.  Both  had  delicate  eyebrows, 
not  strongly  defined,  yet  somewhat  darker  than  their 
hair ;  both  had  small  sweet  mouths,  maiden  mouths,  of 
not  so  warm  and  deep  a  tint  as  ruby,  but  only  red  as 
the  reddest  rose ;  each  had  those  gems,  the  rarest,  the 
most  precious,  a  pair  of  clear,  soft,  bright  blue  eyes. 
Their  style  of  dress  was  similar ;  one  had  on  a  black 
silk  gown,  with  a  stomacher  of  velvet,  and  scalloped 
cuffs  of  the  same  from  the  wrist  to  the  elbow  ;  the  other 
wore  cuffs  and  stomacher  of  the  like  pattern  and  ma 
terial,  over  a  gown  of  crimson  silk.  The  dress  was 
rather  heavy  for  their  slight  figures,  but  suited  to  Sep 
tember.  They  and  the  darker  beauty  all  carried  their 
straw  bonnets  in  their  hands." 

I  cannot  better  conclude  these  fragments  than  with 
poor  Oberon's  description  of  his  return  to  his  native 
village  after  his  slow  recovery  from  his  illness.  How 
beautifully  does  he  express  his  penitential  emotions  ! 
A  beautiful  moral  may  be  indeed  drawn  from  the  early 
death  of  a  sensitive  recluse,  who  had  shunned  the  ordi 
nary  avenues  of  distinction,  and  with  splendid  abilities 
sank  to  rest  into  an  early  grave,  almost  unknown  to 
mankind,  and  without  any  record  save  what  my  pen 
hastily  leaves  upon  these  tear-blotted  pages. 


IL 

MY  HOME   RETURN. 

WHEN  the  stage-coach  had  gained  the  summit  of 
the  hill,  I  alighted  to  perform  the  small  remainder  of 
my  journey  on  foot.  There  had  not  been  a  more  deli 
cious  afternoon  than  this  in  all  the  train  of  summer, 
the  air  being  a  sunny  perfume,  made  up  of  balm,  and 
warmth,  and  gentle  brightness.  The  oak  and  walnut 
trees  over  my  head  retained  their  deep  masses  of  fo 
liage,  and  the  grass,  though  for  months  the  pasturage 
of  stray  cattle,  had  been  revived  with  the  freshness 
of  early  June  by  the  autumnal  rains  of  the  preceding 
week.  The  garb  of  autumn,  indeed,  resembled  that 
of  spring.  Dandelions  and  butterflies  were  sprinkled 
along  the  roadside,  like  drops  of  brightest  gold  in 
greenest  grass,  and  a  star-shaped  little  flower  of  blue, 
with  a  golden  centre.  In  a  rocky  spot,  and  rooted 
under  the  stone  walk,  there  was  one  wild  rose-bush 
bearing  three  roses,  very  faintly  tinted,  but  blessed 
with  a  spicy  fragrance.  The  same  tokens  would  have 
announced  that  the  year  was  brightening  into  the  glow 
of  summer.  There  were  violets  too,  though  few  and 
pale  ones.  But  the  breath  of  September  was  diffused 
through  the  mild  air,  and  became  perceptible,  too 
thrillingly  for  my  enfeebled  frame,  whenever  a  little 
breeze  shook  out  the  latent  coolness. 

"  I  was  standing  on  the  hill  at  the  entrance  of  my 
native  village,  whence  I  had  looked  back  to  bid  fare- 


36  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

well,  and  forward  to  the  pale  mist-bow  that  overarched 
my  path,  and  was  the  omen  of  my  fortunes.  How  I 
had  misinterpreted  that  augury,  the  ghost  of  hope, 
with  none  of  hope's  bright  hues !  Nor  could  I  deem 
that  all  its  portents  were  yet  accomplished,  though 
from  the  same  western  sky  the  declining  sun  shone 
brightly  in  my  face.  But  I  was  calm  and  not  de 
pressed.  Turning  to  the  village,  so  dim  and  dream 
like  at  my  last  view,  I  saw  the  white  houses  and  brick 
stores,  the  intermingled  trees,  the  foot-paths  with  their 
wide  borders  of  grass,  and  the  dusty  road  between; 
all  a  picture  of  peaceful  gladness  in  the  sunshine. 

" '  Why  have  I  never  loved  my  home  before  ? ' 
thought  I,  as  my  spirit  reposed  itself  on  the  quiet 
beauty  of  the  scene. 

"  On  the  side  of  the  opposite  hill  was  the  graveyard, 
sloping  towards  the  farther  extremity  of  the  village. 
The  sun  shone  as  cheerfully  there  as  on  the  abodes  of 
the  living,  and  showed  all  the  little  hillocks  and  the 
burial-stones,  white  marble  or  slate,  and  here  and  there 
a  tomb,  with  the  pleasant  grass  about  them  all.  A 
single  tree  was  tinged  with  glory  from  the  west,  and 
threw  a  pensive  shade  behind.  Not  far  from  where  it 
fell  was  the  tomb  of  my  parents,  whom  I  had  hardly 
thought  of  in  bidding  adieu  to  the  village,  but  had 
remembered  them  more  faithfully  among  the  feelings 
that  drew  me  homeward.  At  my  departure  their  tomb 
had  been  hidden  in  the  morning  mist.  Beholding  it 
in  the  sunshine  now,  I  felt  a  sensation  through  my 
frame  as  if  a  breeze  had  thrown  the  coolness  of  Sep 
tember  over  me,  though  not  a  leaf  was  stirred,  nor  did 
the  thistle-down  take  flight.  Was  I  to  roam  no  more 
through  this  beautiful  world,  but  only  to  the  other  end 
of  the  village?  Then  let  me  lie  down  near  my  pa* 


MY  HOME  RETURN.  37 

rents,  but  not  with  them,  because  I  love  a  green  grave 
better  than  a  tomb. 

"  Moving  slowly  forward,  I  heard  shouts  and  laugh 
ter,  and  perceived  a  considerable  throng  of  people, 
who  came  from  behind  the  meeting-house  and  made  a 
stand  in  front  of  it.  Thither  all  the  idlers  in  the  vil 
lage  were  congregated  to  witness  the  exercises  of  the 
engine  company,  this  being  the  afternoon  of  their 
monthly  practice.  They  deluged  the  roof  of  the  meet 
ing-house,  till  the  water  fell  from  the  eaves  in  a  broad 
cascade ;  then  the  stream  beat  against  the  dusty  win 
dows  like  a  thunder-storm  ;  and  sometimes  they  flung 
it  up  beside  the  steeple,  sparkling  in  an  ascending 
shower  about  the  weathercock.  For  variety's  sake  the 
engineer  made  it  undulate  horizontally,  like  a  great 
serpent  flying  over  the  earth.  As  his  last  effort,  being 
roguishly  inclined,  he  seemed  to  take  aim  at  the  sky, 
falling  short  rather  of  which,  down  came  the  fluid, 
transformed  to  drops  of  silver,  on  the  thickest  crowd 
of  the  spectators.  Then  ensued  a  prodigious  rout  and 
mirthful  uproar,  with  no  little  wrath  of  the  surly  ones, 
whom  this  is  an  infallible  method  of  distinguishing. 
The  joke  afforded  infinite  amusement  to  the  ladies 
at  the  windows  and  some  old  people  under  the  hay- 
scales.  I  also  laughed  at  a  distance,  and  was  glad  to 
find  myself  susceptible,  as  of  old,  to  the  simple  mirth 
of  such  a  scene. 

"  But  the  thoughts  that  it  excited  were  not  all  mirth 
ful.  I  had  witnessed  hundreds  of  such  spectacles  in 
my  youth,  and  one  precisely  similar  only  a  few  days 
before  my  departure.  And  now,  the  aspect  of  the 
village  being  the  same,  and  the  crowd  composed  of  my 
old  acquaintances,  I  could  hardly  realize  that  years 
had  passed,  or  even  months,  or  thai  the  very  drops  of 


38  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

water  were  not  falling  at  this  moment,  which  had  been 
flung  up  then.  But  I  pressed  the  conviction  home, 
that,  brief  as  the  time  appeared,  it  had  been  long 
enough  for  me  to  wander  away  and  return  again,  with 
my  fate  accomplished,  and  little  more  hope  in  this 
world.  The  last  throb  of  an  adventurous  and  way 
ward  spirit  kept  me  from  repining.  I  felt  as  if  it 
were  better  or  not  worse,  to  have  compressed  my  en 
joyments  and  sufferings  into  a  few  wild  years,  and 
then  to  rest  myself  in  an  early  grave,  than  to  have 
chosen  the  untroubled  and  ungladdened  course  of  the 
crowd  before  me,  whose  days  were  all  alike,  and  a 
long  lifetime  like  each  day.  But  the  sentiment  star 
tled  me.  For  a  moment  I  doubted  whether  my  dear- 
bought  wisdom  were  anything  but  the  incapacity  to 
pursue  fresh  follies,  and  whether,  if  health  and  strength 
could  be  restored  that  night,  I  should  be  found  in  the 
village  after  to-morrow's  dawn. 

"  Among  other  novelties,  I  had  noticed  that  the  tav 
ern  was  now  designated  as  a  Temperance  House,  in 
letters  extending  across  the  whole  front,  with  a  smaller 
sign  promising  Hot  Coffee  at  all  hours,  and  Spruce 
Beer  to  lodgers  gratis.  There  were  few  new  build 
ings,  except  a  Methodist  chapel  and  a  printing-office, 
with  a  bookstore  in  the  lower  story.  The  golden  mor 
tar  still  ornamented  the  apothecary's  door,  nor  had  the 
Indian  Chief,  with  his  gilded  tobacco  stalk,  been  re 
lieved  from  doing  sentinel's  duty  before  Dominions 
Pike's  grocery.  The  gorgeous  silks,  though  of  later 
patterns,  were  still  flaunting  like  a  banner  in  front  of 
Mr.  Nightingale's  dry-goods  store.  Some  of  the  signs 
introduced  me  to  strangers,  whose  predecessors  had 
failed,  or  emigrated  to  the  West,  or  removed  merely 
to  the  other  end  of  the  village,  transferring  their  names 


MY  HOME  RETURN.  39 

from  the  sign-boards  to  slabs  of  marble  or  slate.  But, 
on  the  whole,  death  and  vicissitude  had  done  very 
little.  There  were  old  men,  scattered  about  the  street, 
who  had  been  old  in  my  earliest  reminiscences ;  and, 
as  if  their  venerable  forms  were  permanent  parts  of 
the  creation,  they  appeared  to  be  hale  and  hearty  old 
men  yet.  The  less  elderly  were  more  altered,  having 
generally  contracted  a  stoop,  with  hair  wofully  thinned 
and  whitened.  Some  I  could  hardly  recognize;  at 
my  last  glance  they  had  been  boys  and  girls,  but  were 
young  men  and  women  when  I  looked  again ;  and 
there  were  happy  little  things  too,  rolling  about  on  the 
grass,  whom  God  had  made  since  my  departure. 

"  But  now,  in  my  lingering  course,  I  had  descended 
the  hill,  and  began  to  consider,  painfully  enough,  how 
I  should  meet  my  towns-people,  and  what  reception 
they  would  give  me.  Of  many  an  evil  prophecy,  doubt 
less,  had  I  been  the  subject.  And  would  they  salute 
me  with  a  roar  of  triumph  or  a  low  hiss  of  scorn,  on 
beholding  their  worst  anticipations  more  than  accom 
plished? 

"  4  No,'  said  I,  '  they  will  not  triumph  over  me. 
And  should  they  ask  the  cause  of  my  return,  I  will  tell 
them  that  a  man  may  go  far  and  tarry  long  away,  if 
his  health  be  good  and  his  hopes  high  ;  but  that  when 
flesh  and  spirit  begin  to  fail,  he  remembers  his  birth 
place  and  the  old  burial-ground,  and  hears  a  voice  call 
ing  him  to  come  home  to  his  father  and  mother.  They 
will  know,  by  my  wasted  frame  and  feeble  step,  that  I 
have  heard  the  summons  and  obeyed.  And,  the  first 
greetings  over,  they  will  let  me  walk  among  them  un 
noticed,  and  linger  in  the  sunshine  while  I  may,  and 
steal  into  my  grave  in  peace.' 

"  With   these   reflections   I   looked    kindly  at   the 


40  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

crowd,  and  drew  off  my  glove,  ready  to  give  my  hand 
to  the  first  that  should  put  forth  his.  It  occurred  to 
me,  also,  that  some  youth  among  them,  now  at  the  cri 
sis  of  his  fate,  might  have  felt  his  bosom  thrill  at  my 
example,  and  be  emulous  of  my  wild  life  and  worth 
less  fame.  But  I  would  save  him. 

"  '  He  shall  be  taught,'  said  I,  4  by  my  life,  and  by 
my  death,  that  the  world  is  a  sad  one  for  him  who 
shrinks  from  its  sober  duties.  My  experience  shall 
warn  him  to  adopt  some  great  and  serious  aim,  such 
as  manhood  will  cling  to,  that  he  may  not  feel  himself, 
too  late,  a  cumberer  of  this  overladen  earth,  but  a 
man  among  men.  I  will  beseech  him  not  to  follow 
an  eccentric  path,  nor,  by  stepping  aside  from  the 
highway  of  human  affairs,  to  relinquish  his  claim 
upon  human  sympathy.  And  often,  as  a  text  of  deep 
and  varied  meaning,  I  will  remind  him  that  he  is  an 
American.' 

"  By  this  time  I  had  drawn  near  the  meeting-house, 
and  perceived  that  the  crowd  were  beginning  to  recog 
nize  me." 

These  are  the  last  words  traced  by  his  hand.  Has 
not  so  chastened  a  spirit  found  true  communion  with 
the  pure  in  heaven  ?  "  Until  of  late,  I  never  could 
believe  that  I  was  seriously  ill :  the  past,  I  thought, 
could  not  extend  its  misery  beyond  itself ;  life  was  re 
stored  to  me,  and  should  not  be  missed  again.  I  had 
day-dreams  even  of  wedded  happiness.  Still,  as  the 
days  wear  on,  a  faintness  creeps  through  my  frame 
and  spirit,  recalling  the  consciousness  that  a  very  old 
man  might  as  well  nourish  hope  and  young  desire  as 
I  at  twenty-four.  Yet  the  consciousness  of  my  situa 
tion  does  not  always  make  me  sad.  Sometimes  I  look 
upon  the  world  with  a  quiet  interest,  because  it  cannot 


MY  HOME  RETURN.  41 

concern  me  personally,  and  a  loving  one  for  the  same 
reason,  because  nothing  selfish  can  interfere  with  the 
sense  of  brotherhood.  Soon  to  be  all  spirit,  I  have 
already  a  spiritual  sense  of  human  nature,  and  see 
deeply  into  the  hearts  of  mankind,  discovering  what 
is  hidden  from  the  wisest.  The  loves  of  young  men 
and  virgins  are  known  to  me,  before  the  first  kiss,  be 
fore  the  whispered  word,  with  the  birth  of  the  first 
sigh.  My  glance  comprehends  the  crowd,  and  pene 
trates  the  breast  of  the  solitary  man.  I  think  better 
of  the  world  than  formerly,  more  generously  of  its  vir 
tues,  more  mercifully  of  its  faults,  with  a  higher  esti 
mate  of  its  present  happiness,  and  brighter  hopes  of 
its  destiny.  My  mind  has  put  forth  a  second  crop  of 
blossoms,  as  the  trees  do  in  the  Indian  summer.  No 
winter  will  destroy  their  beauty,  for  they  are  fanned 
by  the  breeze  and  freshened  by  the  shower  that 
breathes  and  falls  in  the  gardens  of  Paradise !  " 


MY  VISIT  TO  NIAGAEA. 

NEVER  did  a  pilgrim  approach  Niagara  with 
deeper  enthusiasm  than  mine.  I  had  lingered  away 
from  it,  and  wandered  to  other  scenes,  because  my 
treasury  of  anticipated  enjoyments,  comprising  all  the 
wonders  of  the  world,  had  nothing  else  so  magnificent, 
and  I  was  loath  to  exchange  the  pleasures  of  hope  for 
those  of  memory  so  soon.  At  length  the  day  came. 
The  stage-coach,  with  a  Frenchman  and  myself  on  the 
back  seat,  had  already  left  Lewiston,  and  in  less  than 
an  hour  would  set  us  doivn  in  Manchester.  I  began 
to  listen  for  the  roar  of  the  cataract,  and  trembled 
with  a  sensation  like  dread,  as  the  moment  drew  uigh, 
when  its  voice  of  ages  must  roll,  for  the  first  time,  on 
my  ear.  The  French  gentleman  stretched  himself 
from  the  window,  and  expressed  loud  admiration, 
while,  by  a  sudden  impulse,  I  threw  myself  back  and 
closed  my  eyes.  When  the  scene  shut  in,  I  was  glad 
to  think,  that  for  me  the  whole  burst  of  Niagara  was 
yet  in  futurity.  We  rolled  on,  and  entered  the  village 
of  Manchester,  bordering  on  the  falls. 

I  am  quite  ashamed  of  myself  here.  Not  that  1 
ran,  like  a  madman  to  the  falls,  and  plunged  into  the 
thickest  of  the  spray,  —  never  stopping  to  breathe,  till 
breathing  was  impossible :  not  that  I  committed  this, 
or  any  other  suitable  extravagance.  On  the  contrary, 
I  alighted  with  perfect  decency  and  composure,  gave 
my  cloak  to  the  black  waiter,  pointed  out  my  baggage, 
and  inquired,  not  the  nearest  way  to  the  cataract,  but 


MY   VISIT  TO  NIAGARA.  43 

about  the  dinner-hour.  The  interval  was  spent  in  ar 
ranging-  my  dress.  Within  the  last  fifteen  minutes, 
my  mind  had  grown  strangely  benumbed,  and  my  spir 
its  apathetic,  with  a  slight  depression,  not  decided 
enough  to  be  termed  sadness.  My  enthusiasm  was  in 
a  deathlike  slumber.  Without  aspiring  to  immortal 
ity,  as  he  did,  I  could  have  imitated  that  English  trav 
eller,  who  turned  back  from  the  point  where  he  first 
heard  the  thunder  of  Niagara,  after  crossing  the  ocean 
to  behold  it.  Many  a  Western  trader,  by  the  by,  has 
performed  a  similar  act  of  heroism  with  more  heroic 
simplicity,  deeming  it  no  such  wonderful  feat  to  dine 
at  the  hotel  and  resume  his  route  to  Buffalo  or  Lewis- 
ton,  while  the  cataract  was  roaring  unseen. 

Such  has  often  been  my  apathy,  when  objects,  long 
sought,  and  earnestly  desired,  were  placed  within  my 
reach.  After  dinner  —  at  which  an  unwonted  and 
perverse  epicurism  detained  me  longer  than  usual  —  I 
lighted  a  cigar  and  paced  the  piazza,  minutely  atten 
tive  to  the  aspect  and  business  of  a  very  ordinary  vil 
lage.  Finally,  with  reluctant  step,  and  the  feeling  of 
an  intruder,  I  walked  towards  Goat  Island.  At  the 
toll-house,  there  were  further  excuses  for  delaying  the 
inevitable  moment.  My  signature  was  required  in  a 
huge  ledger,  containing  similar  records  innumerable, 
many  of  which  I  read.  The  skin  of  a  great  sturgeon, 
and  other  fishes,  beasts,  and  reptiles ;  a  collection  of 
minerals,  such  as  lie  in  heaps  near  the  falls ;  some  In 
dian  moccasons,  and  other  trifles,  made  of  deer-skin 
and  embroidered  with  beads;  several  newspapers  from 
Montreal,  New  York,  and  Boston,  —  all  attracted  me 
in  turn.  Out  of  a  number  of  twisted  sticks,  the  man 
ufacture  of  a  Tuscarora  Indian,  I  selected  one  of 
curled  maple,  curiously  convoluted,  and  adorned  with 


44  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

the  carved  images  of  a  snake  and  a  fish.  Using  this 
as  my  pilgrim's  staff,  I  crossed  the  bridge.  Above 
and  below  me  were  the  rapids,  a  river  of  impetuous 
snow,  with  here  and  there  a  dark  rock  amid  its  white 
ness,  resisting  all  the  physical  fury,  as  any  cold  spirit 
did  the  moral  influences  of  the  scene.  On  reaching 
Goat  Island,  which  separates  the  two  great  segments 
of  the  falls,  I  chose  the  right-hand  path,  and  followed 
it  to  the  edge  of  the  American  cascade.  There,  while 
the  falling  sheet  was  yet  invisible,  I  saw  the  vapor 
that  never  vanishes,  and  the  Eternal  Rainbow  of  Ni 
agara. 

It  was  an  afternoon  of  glorious  sunshine,  without  a 
cloud,  save  those  of  the  cataracts.  I  gained  an  in 
sulated  rock,  and  beheld  a  broad  sheet  of  brilliant  and 
unbroken  foam,  not  shooting  in  a  curved  line  from  the 
top  of  the  precipice,  but  falling  headlong  down  from 
height  to  depth.  A  narrow  stream  diverged  from  the 
main  branch,  and  hurried  over  the  crag  by  a  channel 
of  its  own,  leaving  a  little  pine-clad  island  and  a  streak 
of  precipice  between  itself  and  the  larger  sheet.  Be 
low  arose  the  mist,  on  which  was  painted  a  dazzling 
sunbow  with  two  concentric  shadows,  —  one,  almost 
as  perfect  as  the  original  brightness ;  and  the  other, 
drawn  faintly  round  the  broken  edge  of  the  cloud. 

Still  I  had  not  half  seen  Niagara.  Following  the 
verge  of  the  island,  the  path  led  me  to  the  Horseshoe, 
where  the  real,  broad  St.  Lawrence,  rushing  along  on 
a  level  with  its  banks,  pours  its  whole  breadth  over  a 
concave  line  of  precipice,  and  thence  pursues  its  course 
between  lofty  crags  towards  Ontario.  A  sort  of 
bridge,  two  or  three  feet  wide,  stretches  out  along  the 
edge  of  the  descending  sheet,  and  hangs  upon  the  ris 
ing  mist,  as  if  that  were  the  foundation  of  the  frail 


MY   VISIT  TO  NIAGARA.  45 

structure.  Here  I  stationed  myself  in  the  blast  of 
wind,  which  the  rushing  river  bore  along  with  it.  The 
bridge  was  tremulous  beneath  me,  and  marked  the 
tremor  of  the  solid  earth.  I  looked  along  the  whiten 
ing  rapids,  and  endeavored  to  distinguish  a  mass  of 
water  far  above  the  falls,  to  follow  it  to  their  verge, 
and  go  down  with  it,  in  fancy,  to  the  abyss  of  clouds 
and  storm.  Casting  my  eyes  across  the  river,  and 
every  side,  I  took  in  the  whole  scene  at  a  glance,  and 
tried  to  comprehend  it  in  one  vast  idea.  After  an 
hour  thus  spent,  I  left  the  bridge,  and,  by  a  staircase, 
winding  almost  interminably  round  a  post,  descended 
to  the  base  of  the  precipice.  From  that  point,  my 
path  lay  over  slippery  stones,  and  among  great  frag 
ments  of  the  cliff,  to  the  edge  of  the  cataract,  where 
the  wind  at  once  enveloped  me  in  spray,  and  perhaps 
dashed  the  rainbow  round  me.  Were  my  long  desires 
fulfilled  ?  And  had  I  seen  Niagara  ? 

Oh  that  I  had  never  heard  of  Niagara  till  I  beheld 
it !  Blessed  were  the  wanderers  of  old,  who  heard  its 
deep  roar,  sounding  through  the  woods,  as  the  sum 
mons  to  an  unknown  wonder,  and  approached  its  awful 
brink,  in  all  the  freshness  of  native  feeling.  Had  its 
own  mysterious  voice  been  the  first  to  warn  me  of  its 
existence,  then,  indeed,  I  might  have  knelt  down  and 
worshipped.  But  I  had  come  thither,  haunted  with  a 
vision  of  foam  and  fury,  and  dizzy  cliffs,  and  an  ocean 
tumbling  down  out  of  the  sky,  —  a  scene,  in  short, 
which  nature  had  too  much  good  taste  and  calm  sim 
plicity  to  realize.  My  mind  had  struggled  to  adapt 
these  false  conceptions  to  the  reality,  and  finding 
the  effort  vain,  a  wretched  sense  of  disappointment 
weighed  me  down.  I  climbed  the  precipice,  and 
threw  myself  on  the  earth,  feeling  that  I  was  un- 


46  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

worthy  to  look  at  the  Great  Falls,  and  careless  about 
beholding  them  again.  .  .  . 

All  that  night,  as  there  has  been  and  will  be  for 
ages  past  and  to  come,  a  rushing  sound  was  heard,  as 
if  a  great  tempest  were  sweeping  through  the  air.  It 
mingled  with  my  dreams,  and  made  them  full  of  storm 
and  whirlwind.  Whenever  I  awoke,  and  heard  this 
dread  sound  in  the  air,  and  the  windows  rattling  as 
with  a  mighty  blast,  I  could  not  rest  again,  till  look 
ing  forth,  I  saw  how  bright  the  stars  were,  and  that 
every  leaf  in  the  garden  was  motionless.  Never  was  a 
summer  night  more  calm  to  the  eye,  nor  a  gale  of  au 
tumn  louder  to  the  ear.  The  rushing  sound  proceeds 
from  the  rapids,  and  the  rattling  of  the  casements  is 
but  an  effect  of  the  vibration  of  the  whole  house, 
shaken  by  the  jar  of  the  cataract.  The  noise  of  the 
rapids  draws  the  attention  from  the  true  voice  of 
Niagara,  which  is  a  dull,  muffled  thunder,  resounding 
between  the  cliffs.  I  spent  a  wakeful  hour  at  mid 
night,  in  distinguishing  its  reverberations,  and  re 
joiced  to  find  that  my  former  awe  and  enthusiasm  were 
reviving. 

Gradually,  and  after  much  contemplation,  I  came  to 
know,  by  my  own  feelings,  that  Niagara  is  indeed  a 
wonder  of  the  world,  and  not  the  less  wonderful,  be 
cause  time  and  thought  must  be  employed  in  compre 
hending  it.  Casting  aside  all  preconceived  notions, 
and  preparation  to  be  dire-struck  or  delighted,  the  be 
holder  must  stand  beside  it  in  the  simplicity  of  his 
heart,  suffering  the  mighty  scene  to  work  its  own  im 
pression.  Night  after  night,  I  dreamed  of  it,  and  was 
gladdened  every  morning  by  the  consciousness  of  a 
growing  capacity  to  enjoy  it.  Yet  I  will  not  pretend 
to  the  all-absorbing  enthusiasm  of  some  more  fortunate 


MY  VI-ZIT  TO  NIAGARA.  47 


spectators,  nor  deny  that  very  trifling  causes  would 
draw  my  eyes  and  thoughts  from  the  cataract. 

The  last  day  that  I  was  to  spend  at  Niagara,  before 
my  departure  for  the  Far  West,  I  sat  upon  the  Table 
Kock.  This  celebrated  station  did  not  now,  as  of  old, 
project  fifty  feet  beyond  the  line  of  the  precipice,  but 
was  shattered  by  the  fall  of  an  immense  fragment, 
which  lay  distant  on  the  shore  below.  Still,  on  the 
utmost  verge  of  the  rock,  with  my  feet  hanging  over 
it,  I  felt  as  if  suspended  in  the  open  air.  Never  be 
fore  had  my  mind  been  in  such  perfect  unison  with 
the  scene.  There  were  intervals,  when  I  was  con 
scious  of  nothing  but  the  great  river,  rolling  calmly 
into  the  abyss,  rather  descending  than  precipitating 
itself,  and  acquiring  tenfold  majesty  from  its  unhur 
ried  motion.  It  came  like  the  march  of  Destiny.  It 
was  not  taken  by  surprise,  but  seemed  to  have  antic 
ipated,  in  all  its  course  through  the  broad  lakes,  that 
it  must  pour  their  collected  waters  down  this  height. 
The  perfect  foam  of  the  river,  after  its  descent,  and 
the  ever-varying  shapes  of  mist,  rising  up,  to  become 
clouds  in  the  sky,  would  be  the  very  picture  of  con 
fusion,  were  it  merely  transient,  like  the  rage  of  a 
tempest.  But  when  the  beholder  has  stood  awhile, 
and  perceives  no  lull  in  the  storm,  and  considers  that 
the  vapor  and  the  foam  are  as  everlasting  as  the  rocks 
which  produce  them,  all  this  turmoil  assumes  a  sort  of 
calmness.  It  soothes,  while  it  awes  the  mind. 

Leaning  over  the  cliff,  I  saw  the  guide  conducting 
two  adventurers  behind  the  falls.  It  was  pleasant, 
from  that  high  seat  in  the  sunshine,  to  observe  them 
struggling  against  the  eternal  storm  of  the  lower  re 
gions,  with  heads  bent  down,  now  faltering,  now  press 
ing  forward,  and  finally  swallowed  up  in  their  victory. 


48  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

After  their  disappearance,  a  blast  rushed  out  with  an 
old  hat,  which  it  had  swept  from  one  of  their  heads. 
The  rock,  to  which  they  were  directing  their  unseen 
course,  is  marked,  at  a  fearful  distance  on  the  exterior 
of  the  sheet,  by  a  jet  of  foam.  The  attempt  to  reach 
it  appears  both  poetical  and  perilous  to  a  looker-on, 
but  may  be  accomplished  without  much  more  diffi 
culty  or  hazard,  than  in  stemming  a  violent  north 
easter.  In  a  few  moments,  forth  came  the  children 
of  the  mist.  Dripping  and  breathless,  they  crept 
along  the  base  of  the  cliff,  ascended  to  the  guide's  cot 
tage,  and  received,  I  presume,  a  certificate  of  their 
achievement,  with  three  verses  of  sublime  poetry  on 
the  back. 

My  contemplations  were  often  interrupted  by  stran 
gers  who  came  down  from  Forsyth's  to  take  their  first 
view  of  the  falls.  A  short,  ruddy,  middle-aged  gen 
tleman,  fresh  from  Old  England,  peeped  over  the  rock, 
and  evinced  his  approbation  by  a  broad  grin.  His 
spouse,  a  very  robust  lady,  afforded  a  sweet  example 
of  maternal  solicitude,  being  so  intent  on  the  safety  of 
her  little  boy  that  she  did  not  even  glance  at  Niagara. 
As  for  the  child,  he  gave  himself  wholly  to  the  enjoy 
ment  of  a  stick  of  candy.  Another  traveller,  a  native 
American,  and  no  rare  character  among  us,  produced 
a  volume  of  Captain  Hall's  tour,  and  labored  earnestly 
to  adjust  Niagara  to  the  captain's  description,  depart 
ing,  at  last,  without  one  new  idea  or  sensation  of  his 
own.  The  next  comer  was  provided,  not  with  a 
printed  book,  but  with  a  blank  sheet  of  foolscap,  from 
top  to  bottom  of  which,  by  means  of  an  ever-pointed 
pencil,  the  cataract  was  made  to  thunder.  In  a  little 
talk,  which  we  had  together,  he  awarded  his  approba 
tion  to  the  general  view,  but  censured  the  position  oi 


MY  VISIT  TO  NIAGARA.  49 

Goat  Island,  observing  that  it  should  have  been  thrown 
farther  to  the  right,  so  as  to  widen  the  American  falls, 
and  contract  those  of  the  Horseshoe.  Next  appeared 
two  traders  of  Michigan,  who  declared,  that,  upon  the 
whole,  the  sight  was  worth  looking  at ;  there  certainly 
was  an  immense  water-power  here ;  but  that,  after  all, 
they  would  go  twice  as  far  to  see  the  noble  stone-works 
of  Lockport,  where  the  Grand  Canal  is  locked  down  a 
descent  of  sixty  feet.  They  were  succeeded  by  a  young 
fellow,  in  a  homespun  cotton  dress,  with  a  staff  in  his 
hand,  and  a  pack  over  his  shoulders.  He  advanced 
close  to  the  edge  of  the  rock,  where  his  attention,  at 
first  wavering  among  the  different  components  of  the 
scene,  finally  became  fixed  in  the  angle  of  the  Horse 
shoe  falls,  which  is,  indeed,  the  central  point  of  inter 
est.  His  whole  soul  seemed  to  go  forth  and  be  trans 
ported  thither,  till  the  staff  slipped  from  his  relaxed 
grasp,  and  falling  down  —  down  —  down  —  struck 
upon  the  fragment  of  the  Table  Rock. 

In  this  manner  I  spent  some  hours,  watching  the 
varied  impression,  made  by  the  cataract,  on  those  who 
disturbed  me,  and  returning  to  unwearied  contempla 
tion,  when  left  alone.  At  length  my  time  came  to  de 
part.  There  is  a  grassy  footpath,  through  the  woods, 
along  the  summit  of  the  bank,  to  a  point  whence  a 
causeway,  hewn  in  the  side  of  the  precipice,  goes  wind 
ing  down  to  the  Ferry,  about  half  a  mile  below  the 
Table  Rock.  The  sun  was  near  setting,  when  I 
emerged  from  the  shadow  of  the  trees,  and  began  the 
descent.  The  indirectness  of  my  downward  road  con 
tinually  changed  the  point  of  view,  and  showed  me,  in 
rich  and  repeated  succession,  now,  the  whitening  rap- 
ids  and  majestic  leap  of  the  main  river,  which  ap 
peared  more  deeply  massive  as  the  light  departed ; 

VOL.  xii.  4 


50  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

now,  the  lovelier  picture,  yet  still  sublime,  of  Goat 
Island,  with  its  rocks  and  grove,  and  the  lesser  falls, 
tumbling  over  the  right  bank  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  like 
a  tributary  stream ;  now,  the  long  vista  of  the  river, 
as  it  eddied  and  whirled  between  the  cliffs,  to  pass 
through  Ontario  toward  the  sea,  and  everywhere  to 
be  wondered  at,  for  this  one  unrivalled  scene.  The 
golden  sunshine  tinged  the  sheet  of  the  American  cas 
cade,  and  painted  on  its  heaving  spray  the  broken 
semicircle  of  a  rainbow,  heaven's  own  beauty  crown 
ing  earth's  sublimity.  My  steps  were  slow,  and  I  paused 
long  at  every  turn  of  the  descent,  as  one  lingers  and 
pauses  who  discerns  a  brighter  and  brightening  excel 
lence  in  what  he  must  soon  behold  no  more.  The  soli 
tude  of  the  old  wilderness  now  reigned  over  the  whole 
vicinity  of  the  falls.  My  enjoyment  became  the  more 
rapturous,  because  no  poet  shared  it,  nor  wretch  de 
void  of  poetry  profaned  it ;  but  the  spot  so  famous 
through  the  world  was  all  my  own ! 


THE  ANTIQUE   RING. 

"  YES,  indeed :  the  gem  is  as  bright  as  a  star,  and 
curiously  set,"  said  Clara  Pemberton,  examining  an 
antique  ring,  which  her  betrothed  lover  had  just  pre 
sented  to  her,  with  a  very  pretty  speech.  "  It  needs 
only  one  thing  to  make  it  perfect." 

"  And  what  is  that  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Edward  Caryl, 
secretly  anxious  for  the  credit  of  his  gift.  "  A  modern 
setting,  perhaps  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no  !  That  would  destroy  the  charm  at  once," 
replied  Clara.  "  It  needs  nothing  but  a  story.  I 
long  to  know  how  many  times  it  has  been  the  pledge 
of  faith  between  two  lovers,  and  whether  the  vows,  of 
which  it  was  the  symbol,  were  always  kept  or  often 
broken.  Not  that  I  should  be  too  scrupulous  about 
facts.  If  you  happen  to  be  unacquainted  with  its  au 
thentic  history,  so  much  the  better.  May  it  not  have 
sparkled  upon  a  queen's  finger  ?  Or  who  knows  but 
it  is  the  very  ring  which  Posthumus  received  from 
Imogen  ?  In  short,  you  must  kindle  your  imagina 
tion  at  the  lustre  of  this  diamond,  and  make  a  legend 
for  it." 

Now  such  a  task  —  and  doubtless  Clara  knew  it  — 
was  the  most  acceptable  that  could  have  been  imposed 
on  Edward  Caryl.  He  was  one  of  that  multitude  of 
young  gentlemen  —  limbs,  or  rather  twigs,  of  the  law 
—  whose  names  appear  in  gilt  letters  on  the  front  of 
Tudor's  Buildings,  and  other  places  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  Court  House,  which  seem  to  be  the  haunt  of  the 


52  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

gentler  as  well  as  the  severer  Muses.  Edward,  in  the 
dearth  of  clients,  was  accustomed  to  employ  his  much 
leisure  in  assisting  the  growth  of  American  Literature, 
to  which  good  cause  he  had  contributed  not  a  few 
quires  of  the  finest  letter-paper,  containing  some 
thought,  some  fancy,  some  depth  of  feeling,  together 
with  a  young  writer's  abundance  of  conceits.  Sonnets, 
stanzas  of  Tennysonian  sweetness,  tales  imbued  with 
German  mysticism,  versions  from  Jean  Paul,  criti 
cisms  of  the  old  English  poets,  and  essays  smacking  of 
Dialistic  philosophy,  were  among  his  multifarious  pro 
ductions.  The  editors  of  the  fashionable  periodicals 
were  familiar  with  his  autography,  and  inscribed  his 
name  in  those  brilliant  bead-rolls  of  ink-stained  celeb 
rity  which  illustrate  the  first  page  of  their  covers.  Nor 
did  fame  withhold  her  laurel.  Hillard  had  included 
him  among  the  lights  of  the  New  England  metropolis, 
in  his  "  Boston  Book ; "  Bryant  had  found  room  for 
some  of  his  stanzas,  in  the  "  Selections  from  American 
Poetry;  "  and  Mr.  Griswold,  in  his  recent  assemblage 
of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  song,  had  introduced 
Edward  Caryl  into  the  inner  court  of  the  temple, 
among  his  fourscore  choicest  bards.  There  was  a 
prospect,  indeed,  of  his  assuming  a  still  higher  and 
more  independent  position.  Interviews  had  been  held 
with  Ticknor,  and  a  correspondence  with  the  Harpers, 
respecting  a  proposed  volume,  chiefly  to  consist  of  Mr. 
Caryl's  fugitive  pieces  in  the  Magazines,  but  to  be 
accompanied  with  a  poem  of  some  length,  never  be 
fore  published.  Not  improbably,  the  public  may  yet 
be  gratified  with  this  collection. 

Meanwhile,  we  sum  up  our  sketch  of  Edward  Caryl, 
by  pronouncing  him,  though  somewhat  of  a  carpet 
knight  in  literature,  yet  no  unfavorable  specimen  of  a 


THE  ANTIQUE  RING.  53 

generation  of  rising  writers,  whose  spirit  is  such  that 
we  may  reasonably  expect  creditable  attempts  from 
all,  and  good  and  beautiful  results  from  some.  And, 
it  will  be  observed,  Edward  was  the  very  man  to  write 
pretty  legends,  at  a  lady's  instance,  for  an  old-fash 
ioned  diamond  ring.  He  took  the  jewel  in  his  hand, 
and  turned  it  so  as  to  catch  its  scintillating  radiance, 
as  if  hoping,  in  accordance  with  Clara's  suggestion,  to 
light  up  his  fancy  with  that  star-like  gleam. 

"  Shall  it  be  a  ballad?  — a  tale  in  verse?"  he  in 
quired.  "  Enchanted  rings  often  glisten  in  old  Eng 
lish  poetry  ;  I  think  something  may  be  done  with  the 
subject ;  but  it  is  fitter  for  rhyme  than  prose." 

"  No,  no,"  said  Miss  Pemberton,  "  we  will  have  no 
more  rhyme  than  just  enough  for  a  posy  to  the  ring. 
You  must  tell  the  legend  in  simple  prose  ;  and  when 
it  is  finished,  I  will  mako  a  little  party  to  hear  it 
read." 

The  young  gentleman  promised  obedience  ;  and  go 
ing  to  his  pillow,  with  his  head  full  of  the  familiar 
spirits  that  used  to  be  worn  in  rings,  watches,  and 
sword-hilts,  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  possess  himself 
of  an  available  idea  in  a  dream.  Connecting  this  with 
what  he  himself  chanced  to  know  of  the  ring's  real 
history,  his  task  was  done.  Clara  Pemberton  invited 
a  select  few  of  her  friends,  all  holding  the  stanchest 
faith  in  Edward's  genius,  and  therefore  the  most  ge 
nial  auditors,  if  not  altogether  the  fairest  critics,  that 
a  writer  could  possibly  desire.  Blessed  be  woman  for 
her  faculty  of  admiration,  and  especially  for  her  ten 
dency  to  admire  with  her  heart,  when  man,  at  most, 
grants  merely  a  cold  approval  with  his  mind  ! 

Drawing  his  chair  beneath  the  blaze  of  a  solar  lamp, 
Edward  Caryl  untied  a  roll  of  glossy  paper,  and  began 
as  follows :  — 


54  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 


THE   LEGEND. 

After  the  death-warrant  had  been  read  to  the  Earl 
of  Essex,  and  on  the  evening  before  his  appointed  ex 
ecution,  the  Countess  of  Shrewsbury  paid  his  lordship 
a  visit,  and  found  him,  as  it  appeared,  toying  child 
ishly  with  a  ring.  The  diamond,  that  enriched  it, 
glittered  like  a  little  star,  but  with  a  singular  tinge  of 
red.  The  gloomy  prison-chamber  in  the  Tower,  with 
its  deep  and  narrow  windows  piercing  the  walls  of 
stone,  was  now  all  that  the  earl  possessed  of  worldly 
prospect ;  so  that  there  was  the  less  wonder  that  he 
should  look  steadfastly  into  the  gem,  and  moralize 
upon  earth's  deceitful  splendor,  as  men  in  darkness 
and  ruin  seldom  fail  to  do.  But  the  shrewd  observa 
tions  of  the  countess,  —  an  artful  and  unprincipled 
woman,  —  the  pretended  friend  of  Essex,  but  who  had 
come  to  glut  her  revenge  for  a  deed  of  scorn  which 
he  himself  had  forgotten,  —  her  keen  eye  detected  a 
deeper  interest  attached  to  this  jewel.  Even  while 
expressing  his  gratitude  for  her  remembrance  of  a 
ruined  favorite,  and  condemned  criminal,  the  earl's 
glance  reverted  to  the  ring,  as  if  all  that  remained  of 
time  and  its  affairs  were  collected  within  that  small 
golden  circlet. 

"  My  dear  lord,"  observed  the  countess,  "  there  is 
surely  some  matter  of  great  moment  wherewith  this 
ring  is  connected,  since  it  so  absorbs  your  mind.  A 
token,  it  may  be,  of  some  fair  lady's  love,  —  alas,  poor 
lady,  once  richest  in  possessing  such  a  heart !  Would 
you  that  the  jewel  be  returned  to  her  ?  " 

"  The  queen  !  the  queen  !  It  was  her  Majesty's  own 
gift,"  replied  the  earl,  still  gazing  into  the  depths  of 
the  gem.  "  She  took  it  from  her  finger,  and  told  me, 


THE  ANTIQUE  RING.  55 

with  a  smile,  that  it  was  an  heirloom  from  her  Tudor 
ancestors,  and  had  once  been  the  property  of  Merlin, 
the  British  wizard,  who  gave  it  to  the  lady  of  his  love. 
His  art  had  made  this  diamond  the  abiding-place  of  a 
spirit,  which,  though  of  fiendish  nature,  was  bound  to 
work  only  good,  so  long  as  the  ring  was  an  un violated 
pledge  of  love  and  faith,  both  with  the  giver  and 
receiver.  But  should  love  prove  false,  and  faith  be 
broken,  then  the  evil  spirit  would  work  his  own  devil 
ish  will,  until  the  ring  were  purified  by  becoming  the 
medium  of  some  good  and  holy  act,  and  again  the 
pledge  of  faithful  love.  The  gem  soon  lost  its  virtue ; 
for  the  wizard  was  murdered  by  the  very  lady  to  whom 
he  gave  it." 

"  An  idle  legend  !  "  said  the  countess. 

"  It  is  so,"  answered  Essex,  with  a  melancholy 
smile.  "  Yet  the  queen's  favor,  of  which  this  ring 
was  the  symbol,  has  proved  my  ruin.  When  death  is 
nigh,  men  converse  with  dreams  and  shadows.  I  have 
been  gazing  into  the  diamond,  and  fancying  —  but  you 
will  laugh  at  me — that  I  might  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  evil  spirit  there.  Do  you  observe  this  red  glow,  — 
dusky,  too,  amid  all  the  brightness  ?  It  is  the  token 
of  his  presence  ;  and  even  now,  methinks,  it  grows 
redder  and  duskier,  like  an  angry  sunset." 

Nevertheless,  the  earl's  manner  testified  how  slight 
was  his  credence  in  the  enchanted  properties  of  the 
ring.  But  there  is  a  kind  of  playfulness  that  comes 
in  moments  of  despair,  when  the  reality  of  misfortune, 
if  entirely  felt,  would  crush  the  soul  at  once.  He 
now,  for  a  brief  space,  was  lost  in  thought,  while  the 
countess  contemplated  him  with  malignant  satisfac 
tion. 

"  This  ring,"  he  resumed,  in  another  tone,  "  alone 


56  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

remains,  of  all  that  my  royal  mistress's  favor  lavished 
upon  her  servant.  My  fortune  once  shone  as  brightly 
as  the  gem.  And  now,  such  a  darkness  has  fallen 
around  me,  methinks  it  would  be  no  marvel  if  its 
gleam  —  the  sole  light  of  my  prison-house  —  were  to 
be  forthwith  extinguished ;  inasmuch  as  my  last  earthly 
hope  depends  upon  it." 

"  How  say  you,  my  lord  ?  "  asked  the  Countess  of 
Shrewsbury.  "  The  stone  is  bright ;  but  there  should 
be  strange  magic  in  it,  if  it  can  keep  your  hopes  alive, 
at  this  sad  hour.  Alas !  these  iron  bars  and  ramparts 
of  the  Tower  are  unlike  to  yield  to  such  a  spell." 

Essex  raised  his  head  involuntarily ;  for  there  was 
something  in  the  countess's  tone  that  disturbed  him, 
although  he  could  not  suspect  that  an  enemy  had  in 
truded  upon  the  sacred  privacy  of  a  prisoner's  dun 
geon,  to  exult  over  so  dark  a  ruin  of  such  once  brill 
iant  fortunes.  He  looked  her  in  the  face,  but  saw 
nothing  to  awaken  his  distrust.  It  would  have  re 
quired  a  keener  eye  than  even  Cecil's  to  read  the  se 
cret  of  a  countenance,  which  had  been  worn  so  long 
in  the  false  light  of  a  court,  that  it  was  now  little  bet 
ter  than  a  mask,  telling  any  story  save  the  true  one. 
The  condemned  nobleman  again  bent  over  the  ring, 
and  proceeded :  — 

"  It  once  had  power  in  it,  —  this  bright  gem,  —  the 
magic  that  appertains  to  the  talisman  of  a  great 
queen's  favor.  She  bade  me,  if  hereafter  I  should 
fall  into  her  disgrace,  —  how  deep  soever,  and  what 
ever  might  be  the  crime,  —  to  convey  this  jewel  to  her 
sight,  and  it  should  plead  for  me.  Doubtless,  with 
her  piercing  judgment,  she  had  even  then  detected  the 
rashness  of  my  nature,  and  foreboded  some  such  deed 
as  has  now  brought  destruction  upon  my  head.  And 


THE  ANTIQUE  RING.  57 

knowing,  too,  her  own  hereditary  rigor,  she  designed, 
it  may  be,  that  the  memory  of  gentler  and  kindlier 
hours  should  soften  her  heart  in  my  behalf,  when  my 
need  should  be  the  greatest.  I  have  doubted,  —  I 
have  distrusted,  —  yet  who  can  tell,  even  now,  what 
happy  influence  this  ring  might  have  ?  " 

"  You  have  delayed  full  long  to  show  the  ring,  and 
plead  her  Majesty's  gracious  promise,"  remarked  the 
countess,  —  "  your  state  being  what  it  is." 

"  True,"  replied  the  earl :  "  but  for  my  honor's  sake, 
I  was  loath  to  entreat  the  queen's  mercy,  while  I 
might  hope  for  life,  at  least,  from  the  justice  of  the 
laws.  If,  on  a  trial  by  my  peers,  I  had  been  acquitted 
of  meditating  violence  against  her  sacred  life,  then 
would  I  have  fallen  at  her  feet,  and,  presenting  the 
jewel,  have  prayed  no  other  favor  than  that  my  love 
and  zeal  should  be  put  to  the  severest  test.  But  now 
—  it  were  confessing  too  much  —  it  were  cringing  too 
low  —  to  beg  the  miserable  gift  of  life,  on  no  other 
score  than  the  tenderness  which  her  Majesty  deems  me 
to  have  forfeited !  " 

"  Yet  it  is  your  only  hope,"  said  the  countess. 

"  And  besides,"  continued  Essex,  pursuing  his  own 
reflections,  u  of  what  avail  will  be  this  token  of  wo 
manly  feeling,  when,  on  the  other  hand,  are  arrayed 
the  all-prevailing  motives  of  state  policy,  and  the  ar 
tifices  and  intrigues  of  courtiers,  to  consummate  my 
downfall  ?  Will  Cecil  or  Raleigh  suffer  her  heart  to 
act  for  itself,  even  if  the  spirit  of  her  father  were  not 
in  her  ?  It  is  in  vain  to  hope  it." 

But  still  Essex  gazed  at  the  ring  with  an  absorbed 
attention,  that  proved  how  much  hope  his  sanguine 
temperament  had  concentrated  here,  when  there  was 
none  else  for  him  in  the  wide  world,  save  what  lay  in 


58  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

the  compass  of  that  hoop  of  gold.  The  spark  of 
brightness  within  the  diamond,  which  gleamed  like  an 
intenser  than  earthly  fire,  was  the  memorial  of  his  daz 
zling  career.  It  had  not  paled  with  the  waning  sun 
shine  of  his  mistress's  favor ;  on  the  contrary,  in  spite 
of  its  remarkable  tinge  of  dusky  red,  he  fancied  that 
it  never  shone  so  brightly.  The  glow  of  festal  torches, 
—  the  blaze  of  perfumed  lamps,  —  bonfires  that  had 
been  kindled  for  him,  when  he  was  the  darling  of 
the  people,  —  the  splendor  of  the  royal  court,  where 
he  had  been  the  peculiar  star,  —  all  seemed  to  have 
collected  their  moral  or  material  glory  into  the  gem, 
and  to  burn  with  a  radiance  caught  from  the  future, 
as  well  as  gathered  from  the  past.  That  radiance 
might  break  forth  again.  Bursting  from  the  diamond, 
into  which  it  was  now  narrowed,  it  might  beam  first 
upon  the  gloomy  walls  of  the  Tower,  —  then  wider, 
wider,  wider,  —  till  all  England,  and  the  seas  around 
her  cliffs,  should  be  gladdened  with  the  light.  It  was 
such  an  ecstasy  as  often  ensues  after  long  depression, 
and  has  been  supposed  to  precede  the  circumstances 
of  darkest  fate  that  may  befall  mortal  man.  The  earl 
pressed  the  ring  to  his  heart  as  if  it  were  indeed  a  tal 
isman,  the  habitation  of  a  spirit,  as  the  queen  had 
playfully  assured  him,  —  but  a  spirit  of  happier  influ 
ences  than  her  legend  spake  of. 

"  Oh,  could  I  but  make  my  way  to  her  footstool !  " 
cried  he,  waving  his  hand  aloft,  while  he  paced  the 
stone  pavement  of  his  prison-chamber  with  an  impetu 
ous  step.  "I  might  kneel  down,  indeed,  a  ruined  man, 
condemned  to  the  block,  but  how  should  I  rise  again? 
Once  more  the  favorite  of  Elizabeth !  —  England's 
proudest  noble  !  —  with  such  prospects  as  ambition 
never  aimed  at !  Why  have  I  tarried  so  long  in  thii 


THE  ANTIQUE  RING.  59 

weary  dungeon  ?  The  ring  has  power  to  set  me  free ! 
The  palace  wants  me !  Ho,  jailer,  unbar  the  door !  " 

But  then  occurred  the  recollection  of  the  impossibil 
ity  of  obtaining  an  interview  with  his  fatally  estranged 
mistress,  and  testing  the  influence  over  her  affections, 
which  he  still  flattered  himself  with  possessing.  Could 
he  step  beyond  the  limits  of  his  prison,  the  world 
would  be  all  sunshine ;  but  here  was  only  gloom  and 
death. 

"  Alas  !  "  said  he,  slowly  and  sadly,  letting  his  head 
fall  upon  his  hands.  "  I  die  for  the  lack  of  one 
blessed  word." 

The  Countess  of  Shrewsbury,  herself  forgotten  amid 
the  earl's  gorgeous  visions,  had  watched  him  with  an 
aspect  that  could  have  betrayed  nothing  to  the  most 
suspicious  observer ;  unless  that  it  was  too  calm  for 
humanity,  while  witnessing  the  flutterings,  as  it  were, 
of  a  generous  heart  in  the  death-agony.  She  now  ap 
proached  him. 

"  My  good  lord,"  she  said,  "  what  mean  you  to  do  ?  " 

"  Nothing,  —  my  deeds  are  done !  "  replied  he,  de- 
spondingly ;  "  yet,  had  a  fallen  favorite  any  friends, 
I  would  entreat  one  of  them  to  lay  this  ring  at  her 
Majesty's  feet ;  albeit  with  little  hope,  save  that,  here 
after,  it  might  remind  her  that  poor  Essex,  once  far 
too  highly  favored,  was  at  last  too  severely  dealt  with." 

"  I  will  be  that  friend,"  said  the  countess.  "  There 
is  no  time  to  be  lost.  Trust  this  precious  ring  with 
me.  This  very  night  the  queen's  eye  shall  rest  upon, 
it ;  nor  shall  the  efficacy  of  my  poor  words  be  want 
ing,  to  strengthen  the  impression  which  it  will  doubt 
less  make." 

The  earl's  first  impulse  was  to  hold  out  the  ring. 
But  looking  at  the  countess,  as  she  bent  forward  to 


60  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

receive  it,  lie  fancied  that  the  red  glow  of  the  gem 
tinged  all  her  face,  and  gave  it  an  ominous  expression. 
Many  passages  of  past  times  recurred  to  his  memory. 
A  preternatural  insight,  perchance  caught  from  ap 
proaching  death,  threw  its  momentary  gleam,  as  from 
a  meteor,  all  round  his  position. 

"  Countess, '  he  said,  "  I  know  not  wherefore  I  hesi 
tate,  being  in  a  plight  so  desperate,  and  having  so  lit 
tle  choice  of  friends.  But  have  you  looked  into  your 
own  heart?  Can  you  perform  this  office  with  the 
truth  —  the  earnestness  —  the  zeal,  even  to  tears,  and 
agony  of  spirit  —  wherewith  the  holy  gift  of  human 
life  should  be  pleaded  for  ?  Woe  be  unto  you,  should 
you  undertake  this  task,  and  deal  towards  me  other 
wise  than  with  utmost  faith!  For  your  own  soul's 
sake,  and  as  you  would  have  peace  at  your  death-hour, 
consider  well  in  what  spirit  you  receive  this  ring  !  " 

The  countess  did  not  shrink. 

"  My  lord !  — my  good  lord ! "  she  exclaimed,  "  wrong 
not  a  woman's  heart  by  these  suspicions.  You  might 
choose  another  messenger ;  but  who,  save  a  lady  of  her 
bedchamber,  can  obtain  access  to  the  queen  at  this  un 
timely  hour  ?  It  is  for  your  life,  —  for  your  life,  — 
else  I  would  not  renew  my  offer." 

"  Take  the  ring,"  said  the  earl. 

"  Believe  that  it  shall  be  in  the  queen's  hands  be 
fore  the  lapse  of  another  hour,"  replied  the  countess, 
as  she  received  this  sacred  trust  of  life  and  death. 
"  To-morrow  morning  look  for  the  result  of  my  inter 
cession." 

She  departed.  Again  the  earl's  hopes  rose  high. 
Dreams  visited  his  slumber,  not  of  the  sable-decked 
scaffold  in  the  Tower-yard,  but  of  canopies  of  state, 
obsequious  courtiers,  pomp,  splendor,  the  smile  of  the 


THE  ANTIQUE  RING.  61 

once  more  gracious  queen,  and  a  light  beaming  from 
the  magic  gem,  which  illuminated  his  whole  future. 

History  records  how  foully  the  Countess  of  Shrews 
bury  betrayed  the  trust,  which  Essex,  in  his  utmost 
need,  confided  to  her.  She  kept  the  ring,  and  stood 
in  the  presence  of  Elizabeth,  that  night,  without  one 
attempt  to  soften  her  stern  hereditary  temper  in  be 
half  of  the  former  favorite.  The  next  day  the  earl's 
noble  head  rolled  upon  the  scaffold.  On  her  death 
bed,  tortured,  at  last,  with  a  sense  of  the  dreadful 
guilt  which  she  had  taken  upon  her  soul,  the  wicked 
countess  sent  for  Elizabeth,  revealed  the  story  of  the 
ring,  and  besought  forgiveness  for  her  treachery.  But 
the  queen,  still  obdurate,  even  while  remorse  for  past 
obduracy  was  tugging  at  her  heart-strings,  shook  the 
dying  woman  in  her  bed,  as  if  struggling  with  death 
for  the  privilege  of  wreaking  her  revenge  and  spite. 
The  spirit  of  the  countess  passed  away,  to  undergo  the 
justice,  or  receive  the  mercy,  of  a  higher  tribunal ; 
and  tradition  says,  that  the  fatal  ring  was  found  upon 
her  breast,  where  it  had  imprinted  a  dark  red  circle, 
resembling  the  effect  of  the  intensest  heat.  The  at 
tendants,  who  prepared  the  body  for  burial,  shud 
dered,  whispering  one  to  another,  that  the  ring  must 
have  derived  its  heat  from  the  glow  of  infernal  fire. 
They  left  it  on  her  breast,  in  the  coffin,  and  it  went 
with  that  guilty  woman  to  the  tomb. 

Many  years  afterward,  when  the  church,  that  con 
tained  the  monuments  of  the  Shrewsbury  family,  was 
desecrated  by  Cromwell's  soldiers,  they  broke  open  the 
ancestral  vaults,  and  stole  whatever  was  valuable  from 
the  noble  personages  who  reposed  there.  Merlin's  an 
tique  ring  passed  into  the  possession  of  a  stout  ser 
geant  of  the  Ironsides,  who  thus  became  subject  to  the 


62  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

influences  of  the  evil  spirit  that  still  kept  his  abode 
within  the  gem's  enchanted  depths.  The  sergeant  was 
soon  slain  in  battle,  thus  transmitting  the  ring,  though 
without  any  legal  form  of  testament,  to  a  gay  cavalier, 
who  forthwith  pawned  it,  and  expended  the  money  in 
liquor,  which  speedily  brought  him  to  the  grave.  We 
next  catch  the  sparkle  of  the  magic  diamond  at  vari 
ous  epochs  of  the  merry  reign  of  Charles  the  Second. 
But  its  sinister  fortune  still  attended  it.  From  what 
ever  hand  this  ring  of  portent  came,  and  whatever  fin 
ger  it  encircled,  ever  it  was  the  pledge  of  deceit  be 
tween  man  and  man,  or  man  and  woman,  of  faithless 
vows,  and  unhallowed  passion ;  and  whether  to  lords 
and  ladies,  or  to  village  -  maids,  —  for  sometimes  it 
found  its  way  so  low,  —  still  it  brought  nothing  but 
sorrow  and  disgrace.  No  purifying  deed  was  done,  to 
drive  tho  fiend  from  his  bright  home  in  this  little  star. 
Again,  we  hear  of  it  at  a  later  period,  when  Sir  Rob 
ert  Walpole  bestowed  the  ring,  among  far  richer  jew 
els,  on  the  lady  of  a  British  legislator,  whose  political 
honor  he  wished  to  undermine.  Many  a  dismal  and 
unhappy  tale  might  be  wrought  out  of  its  other  adven 
tures.  All  this  while,  its  ominous  tinge  of  dusky  red 
had  been  deepening  and  darkening,  until,  if  laid  upon 
white  paper,  it  cast  the  mingled  hue  of  night  and  blood, 
strangely  illuminated  with  scintillating  light,  in  a  cir 
cle  round  about.  But  this  peculiarity  only  made  it 
the  more  valuable. 

Alas,  the  fatal  ring !  When  shall  its  dark  secret 
be  discovered,  and  the  doom  of  ill,  inherited  from  one 
possessor  to  another,  \gi  finally  revoked  ? 

The  legend  now  cruises  the  Atlantic,  and  comes 
down  to  our  own  immediate  time.  In  a  certain  church 
of  our  city,  not  many  evenings  ago,  there  was  a  con- 


THE  ANTIQUE  RING.  63 

tribution  for  a  charitable  object.  A  fervid  preacher 
had  poured  out  his  whole  soul  in  a  rich  and  tender  dis 
course,  which  had  at  least  excited  the  tears,  arid  per 
haps  the  more  effectual  sympathy,  of  a  numerous  audi 
ence.  While  the  choristers  sang  sweetly,  and  the  organ 
poured  forth  its  melodious  thunder,  the  deacons  passed 
up  and  down  the  aisles,  and  along  the  galleries,  pre 
senting  their  mahogany  boxes,  in  which  each  person 
deposited  whatever  sum  he  deemed  it  safe  to  lend  to 
the  Lord,  in  aid  of  human  wretchedness.  Charity  be 
came  audible,  —  chink,  chink,  chink,  —  as  it  fell  drop 
by  drop,  into  the  common  receptacle.  There  was  a 
hum,  —  a  stir,  —  the  subdued  bustle  of  people  putting 
their  hands  into  their  pockets  ;  while,  ever  and  anon, 
a  vagrant  coin  fell  upon  the  floor,  and  rolled  away, 
with  long  reverberation,  into  some  inscrutable  corner. 

At  length,  all  having  been  favored  with  an  oppor 
tunity  to  be  generous,  the  two  deacons  placed  their 
boxes  on  the  communion-table,  and  thence,  at  the  con 
clusion  of  the  services,  removed  them  into  the  vestry. 
Here  these  good  old  gentlemen  sat  down  together,  to 
reckon  the  accumulated  treasure. 

"  Fie,  fie,  Brother  Tilton,"  said  Deacon  Trott,  peep 
ing  into  Deacon  Tilton's  box,  "  what  a  heap  of  copper 
you  have  picked  up  !  Really,  for  an  old  man,  you 
must  have  had  a  heavy  job  to  lug  it  along.  Copper ! 
copper  !  copper !  Do  people  expect  to  get  admittance 
into  heaven  at  the  price  of  a  few  coppers  ?  " 

"  Don't  wrong  them,  brother,"  answered  Deacon 
Tilton,  a  simple  and  kindly  old  man.  "  Copper  may 
do  more  for  one  person,  than  gold  will  for  another. 
In  the  galleries,  where  I  present  my  box,  we  must  not 
expect  such  a  harvest  as  you  gather  among  the  gentry 
in  the  broad  aisle,  and  all  over  the  floor  of  the  church. 


64  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

My  people  are  chiefly  poor  mechanics  and  laborers, 
sailors,  seamstresses,  and  servant  -  maids,  with  a  most 
uncomfortable  intermixture  of  roguish  school-boys." 

"  Well,  well,"  said  Deacon  Trott ;  "  but  there  is  a 
great  deal,  Brother  Tilton,  in  the  method  of  presenting 
a  contribution-box.  It  is  a  knack  that  comes  by  na 
ture,  or  not  at  all." 

They  now  proceeded  to  sum  up  the  avails  of  the 
evening,  beginning  with  the  receipts  of  Deacon  Trott. 
In  good  sooth,  that  worthy  personage  had  reaped  an 
abundant  harvest,  in  which  he  prided  himself  no  less, 
apparently,  than  if  every  dollar  had  been  contributed 
from  his  own  individual  pocket.  Had  the  good  dea 
con  been  meditating  a  jaunt  to  Texas,  the  treasures 
of  the  mahogany  box  might  have  sent  him  on  his  way 
rejoicing.  There  were  bank  -  notes,  mostly,  it  is  true, 
of  the  smallest  denomination  in  the  giver's  pocket- 
book,  yet  making  a  goodly  average  upon  the  whole. 
The  most  splendid  contribution  was  a  check  for  a  hun 
dred  dollars,  bearing  the  name  of  a  distinguished  mer 
chant,  whose  liberality  was  duly  celebrated  in  the 
newspapers  of  the  next  day.  No  less  than  seven  half- 
eagles,  together  with  an  English  sovereign,  glittered 
amidst  an  indiscriminate  heap  of  silver;  the  box  be 
ing  polluted  with  nothing  of  the  copper  kind,  except  a 
single  bright  new  cent,  wherewith  a  little  boy  had  per 
formed  his  first  charitable  act. 

"Very  well!  very  well  indeed!"  said  Deacon  Trott, 
self -approvingly.  "A  handsome  evening 's  work !  And 
now,  Brother  Tilton,  let 's  see  whether  you  can  match 
it."  Here  was  a  sad  contrast !  They  poured  forth 
Deacon  Tilton's  treasure  upon  the  table,  and  it  really 
seemed  as  if  the  whole  copper  coinage  of  the  country, 
together  with  an  amazing  quantity  of  shop-keeper's 


THE  ANTIQUE  RING.  65 

tokens,  and  English  and  Irish  half-pence,  mostly  of 
base  metal,  had  been  congregated  into  the  box.  There 
was  a  very  substantial  pencil-case,  and  the  semblance 
of  a  shilling ;  but  the  latter  proved  to  be  made  of  tin, 
and  the  former  of  German-silver.  A  gilded  brass  but 
ton  was  doing  duty  as  a  gold  coin,  and  a  folded  shop- 
bill  had  assumed  the  character  of  a  bank-note.  But 
Deacon  Tilton's  feelings  were  much  revived  by  the 
aspect  of  another  bank  -  note,  new  and  crisp,  adorned 
with  beautiful  engravings,  and  stamped  with  the  indu 
bitable  word,  TWENTY,  in  large  black  letters.  Alas ! 
it  was  a  counterfeit.  In  short,  the  poor  old  Deacon 
was  no  less  unfortunate  than  those  who  trade  with 
fairies,  and  whose  gains  are  sure  to  be  transformed 
into  dried  leaves,  pebbles,  and  other  valuables  of  that 
kind. 

"  I  believe  the  Evil  One  is  in  the  box,"  said  he,  with 
some  vexation. 

"  Well  done,  Deacon  Tilton !  "  cried  his  Brother 
Trott,  with  a  hearty  laugh.  "  You  ought  to  have  a 
statue  in  copper." 

"  Never  mind,  brother,"  replied  the  good  Deacon, 
recovering  his  temper.  "  I  '11  bestow  ten  dollars  from 
my  own  pocket,  and  may  Heaven's  blessing  go  along 
with  it.  But  look  !  what  do  you  call  this  ?  " 

Under  the  copper  mountain,  which  it  had  cost  them 
so  much  toil  to  remove,  lay  an  antique  ring  !  It  was 
enriched  with  a  diamond,  which,  so  soon  as  it  caught 
the  light,  began  to  twinkle  and  glimmer,  emitting  the 
whitest  and  purest  lustre  that  could  possibly  be  con 
ceived.  It  was  as  brilliant  as  if  some  magician  had 
condensed  the  brightest  star  in  heaven  into  a  compass 
fit  to  be  set  in  a  ring,  for  a  lady's  delicate  finger. 

"  How  is  this  ? "  said  Deacon  Trott,  examining  it 


66  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

carefully,  in  the  expectation  of  finding  it  as  worthless 
as  the  rest  of  his  colleague's  treasure.  "  Why,  upon 
my  word,  this  seems  to  be  a  real  diamond,  and  of  the 
purest  water.  Whence  could  it  have  come  ?  " 

"  Really,  I  cannot  tell,"  quoth  Deacon  Tilton,  "  for 
my  spectacles  were  so  misty  that  all  faces  looked  alike. 
But  now  I  remember,  there  was  a  flash  of  light  came 
from  the  box,  at  one  moment ;  but  it  seemed  a  dusky 
red,  instead  of  a  pure  white,  like  the  sparkle  of  this 
gem.  Well ;  the  ring  will  make  up  for  the  copper  ; 
but  I  wish  the  giver  had  thrown  its  history  into  the 
box  along  with  it." 

It  has  been  our  good  luck  to  recover  a  portion  of 
that  history.  After  transmitting  misfortune  from  one 
possessor  to  another,  ever  since  the  days  of  British 
Merlin,  the  identical  ring  which  Queen  Elizabeth  gave 
to  the  Earl  of  Essex  was  finally  thrown  into  the  con 
tribution-box  of  a  New  England  church.  The  two 
deacons  deposited  it  in  the  glass  case  of  a  fashionable 
jeweller,  of  whom  it  was  purchased  by  the  humble 
rehearser  of  this  legend,  in  the  hope  that  it  may  be 
allowed  to  sparkle  on  a  fair  lady's  finger.  Purified 
from  the  foul  fiend,  so  long  its  inhabitant,  by  a  deed 
of  unostentatious  charity,  and  now  made  the  symbol 
of  faithful  and  devoted  love,  the  gentle  bosom  of  its 
new  possessor  need  fear  no  sorrow  from  its  influence. 

"  Very  pretty  !  —  Beautiful  !  —  How  original  !  — 
How  sweetly  written!  —  What  nature  !  — What  im 
agination  !  —  What  power !  —  What  pathos  !  —  What 
exquisite  humor!"  —  were  the  exclamations  of  Ed 
ward  Caryl's  kind  and  generous  auditors,  at  the  con 
clusion  of  the  legend. 

"  It  is  a  pretty  tale,"  said  Miss  Pemberton,  who, 


THE  ANTIQUE  RING.  67 

conscious  that  her  praise  was  to  that  of  all  others  as 
a  diamond  to  a  pebble,  was  therefore  the  less  liberal 
in  awarding  it.  "  It  is  really  a  pretty  tale,  and  very 
proper  for  any  of  the  Annuals.  But,  Edward,  your 
moral  does  not  satisfy  me.  What  thought  did  you 
embody  in  the  ring  ?  " 

"  O  Clara,  this  is  too  bad !  "  replied  Edward,  with 
a  half -reproachful  smile.  "  You  know  that  I  can  never 
separate  the  idea  from  the  symbol  in  which  it  mani' 
fests  itself.  However,  we  may  suppose  the  Gem  to  be 
the  human,  heart,  and  the  Evil  Spirit  to  be  Falsehood, 
which,  in  one  guise  or  another,  is  the  fiend  that  causes 
all  the  sorrow  and  trouble  in  the  world.  I  beseech 
you  to  let  this  suffice." 

"  It  shall,"  said  Clara,  kindly.  u  And,  believe  me, 
whatever  the  world  may  say  of  the  story,  I  prize  it 
far  above  the  diamond  which  enkindled  your  imagina 
tion." 


GRAVES  AND  GOBLINS. 

Now  talk  we  of  graves  and  goblins !  Fit  themes, 
—  start  not !  gentle  reader,  —  fit  for  a  ghost  like  me. 
Yes ;  though  an  earth-clogged  fancy  is  laboring  with 
these  conceptions,  and  an  earthly  hand  will  write  them 
down,  for  mortal  eyes  to  read,  still  their  essence  flows 
from  as  airy  a  ghost  as  ever  basked  in  the  pale  star 
light,  at  twelve  o'clock.  Judge  them  not  by  the  gross 
and  heavy  form  in  which  they  now  appear.  They 
may  be  gross,  indeed,  with  the  earthly  pollution  con 
tracted  from  the  brain,  through  which  they  pass  ;  and 
heavy  with  the  burden  of  mortal  language,  that  crushes 
all  the  finer  intelligences  of  the  soul.  This  is  no  fault 
of  mine.  But  should  aught  of  ethereal  spirit  be  per 
ceptible,  yet  scarcely  so,  glimmering  along  the  dull 
train  of  words,  —  should  a  faint  perfume  breathe  from 
the  mass  of  clay,  —  then,  gentle  reader,  thank  the 
ghost,  who  thus  embodies  himself  for  your  sake  ! 
Will  you  believe  me,  if  I  say  that  all  true  and  noble 
thoughts,  and  elevated  imaginations,  are  but  partly 
the  offspring  of  the  intellect  which  seems  to  produce 
them  ?  Sprites,  that  were  poets  once,  and  are  now  all 
poetry,  hover  round  the  dreaming  bard,  and  become 
his  inspiration  ;  buried  statesmen  lend  their  wisdom, 
gathered  on  earth  and  mellowed  in  the  grave,  to  the 
historian ;  and  when  the  preacher  rises  nearest  to  the 
level  of  his  mighty  subject,  it  is  because  the  prophets 
of  old  days  have  commune'd  with  him.  Who  has  not 
been  conscious  of  mysteries  within  his  mind,  mysteries 


GRAVES  AND   GOBLINS.  69 

of  truth  and  reality,  which  will  not  wear  the  chains  of 
language  ?  Mortal,  then  the  dead  were  with  you ! 
And  thus  shall  the  earth-dulled  soul,  whom  I  inspire, 
be  conscious  of  a  misty  brightness  among  his  thoughts, 
and  strive  to  make  it  gleam  upon  the  page,  —  but  all 
in  vain.  Poor  author  !  How  will  he  despise  what 
he  can  grasp,  for  the  sake  of  the  dim  glory  that  eludes 
him ! 

So  talk  we  of  graves  and  goblins.  But,  what  have 
ghosts  to  do  with  graves  ?  Mortal  man,  wearing  the 
dust  which  shall  require  a  sepulchre,  might  deem  it 
more  a  home  and  resting-place  than  a  spirit  can,  whose 
earthly  clod  has  returned  to  earth.  Thus  philosophers 
have  reasoned.  Yet  wiser  they  who  adhere  to  the 
ancient  sentiment,  that  a  phantom  haunts  and  hallows 
the  marble  tomb  or  grassy  hillock  where  its  material 
form  was  laid.  Till  purified  from  each  stain  of  clay ; 
till  the  passions  of  the  living  world  are  all  forgotten  ; 
till  it  have  less  brotherhood  with  the  wayfarers  of 
earth  than  with  spirits  that  never  wore  mortality,  — 
the  ghost  must  linger  round  the  grave.  Oh,  it  is  a  long 
and  dreary  watch  to  some  of  us ! 

Even  in  early  childhood,  I  had  selected  a  sweet  spot, 
of  shade  and  glimmering  sunshine,  for  my  grave.  It 
was  no  burial-ground,  but  a  secluded  nook  of  virgin 
earth,  where  I  used  to  sit,  whole  summer  afternoons, 
dreaming  about  life  and  death.  My  fancy  ripened 
prematurely,  and  taught  me  secrets  which  I  could  not 
otherwise  have  known.  I  pictured  the  coming  years, 
—  they  never  came  to  me,  indeed ;  but  I  pictured 
them  like  life,  and  made  this  spot  the  scene  of  all  that 
should  be  brightest,  in  youth,  manhood,  and  old  age. 
There,  in  a  little  while,  it  would  be  time  for  me  to 
breathe  the  bashful  and  burning  vows  of  first-love  j 


70  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

thither,  after  gathering  fame  abroad,  I  would  return 
to  enjoy  the  loud  plaudit  of  the  world,  a  vast  but  un 
obtrusive  sound,  like  the  booming  of  a  distant  sea ; 
and  thither,  at  the  far-off  close  of  life,  an  aged  man 
would  come,  to  dream,  as  the  boy  was  dreaming,  and 
be  as  happy  in  the  past  as  he  was  in  futurity.  Finally, 
when  all  should  be  finished,  in  that  spot  so  hallowed, 
in  that  soil  so  impregnated  with  the  most  precious  of 
my  bliss,  there  was  to  be  my  grave.  Methought  it 
would  be  the  sweetest  grave  that  ever  a  mortal  frame 
reposed  in,  or  an  ethereal  spirit  haunted.  There,  too, 
in  future  times,  drawn  thither  by  the  spell  which  I  had 
breathed  around  the  place,  boyhood  would  sport  and 
dream,  and  youth  would  love,  and  manhood  would  en 
joy,  and  age  would  dream  again,  and  my  ghost  would 
watch  but  never  frighten  them.  Alas,  the  vanity  of 
mortal  projects,  even  when  they  centre  in  the  grave  ! 
I  died  in  my  first  youth,  before  I  had  been  a  lover ;  at 
a  distance,  also,  from  the  grave  which  fancy  had  dug 
for  me  ;  and  they  buried  me  in  the  thronged  cemetery 
of  a  town,  where  my  marble  slab  stands  unnoticed 
amid  a  hundred  others.  And  there  are  coffins  on 
each  side  of  mine  ! 

"  Alas,  poor  ghost !  "  will  the  reader  say.  Yet  I 
am  a  happy  ghost  enough,  and  disposed  to  be  con 
tented  with  my  grave,  if  the  sexton  will  but  let  it  be 
my  own,  and  bring  no  other  dead  man  to  dispute  my 
title.  Earth  has  left  few  stains  upon  me,  and  it  will 
be  but  a  short  time  that  I  need  haunt  the  place.  It 
is  good  to  die  in  early  youth.  Had  I  lived  out  three 
score  years  and  ten,  or  half  of  them,  my  spirit  would 
have  been  so  earth-incrusted,  that  centuries  might  not 
have  purified  it  for  a  better  home  than  the  dark  pre 
cincts  of  the  grave.  Meantime,  there  is  good  choice 


GRAVES  AND   GOBLINS.  71 

of  company  amongst  us.  From  twilight  till  near  sun 
rise,  we  are  gliding  to  and  fro,  some  in  the  graveyard, 
others  miles  away ;  and,  would  we  speak  with  any 
friend,  we  do  but  knock  against  his  tombstone,  and 
pronounce  the  name  engraved  on  it:  in  an  instant, 
there  the  shadow  stands  ! 

Some  are  ghosts  of  considerable  antiquity.  There 
is  an  old  man,  hereabout ;  he  never  had  a  tombstone, 
and  is  often  puzzled  to  distinguish  his  own  grave ;  but 
hereabouts  he  haunts,  and  long  is  doomed  to  haunt,, 
He  was  a  miser  in  his  lifetime,  and  buried  a  strong 
box  of  ill-gotten  gold,  almost  fresh  from  the  mint,  in 
the  coinage  of  William  and  Mary.  Scarcely  was  it 
safe,  when  the  sexton  buried  the  old  man,  and  his  se 
cret  with  him.  I  could  point  out  the  place  where  the 
treasure  lies  ;  it  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  miser's  gar 
den  ;  but  a  paved  thoroughfare  now  passes  beside  the 
spot,  and  the  corner-stone  of  a  market-house  presses 
right  down  upon  it.  Had  the  workmen  dug  six  inches 
deeper,  they  would  have  found  the  hoard.  Now 
thither  must  this  poor  old  miser  go,  whether  in  star 
light,  moonshine,  or  pitch  darkness,  and  brood  above 
his  worthless  treasure,  recalling  all  the  petty  crimes 
by  which  he  gained  it.  Not  a  coin  must  he  fail  to 
reckon  in  his  memory,  nor  forget  a  pennyworth  of  the 
sin  that  made  up  the  sum,  though  his  agony  is  such  as 
if  the  pieces  of  gold,  red-hot,  were  stamped  into  his 
naked  soul.  Often,  while  he  is  in  torment  there,  he 
hears  the  steps  of  living  men,  who  love  the  dross  of 
earth  as  well  as  he  did.  May  they  never  groan  over 
their  miserable  wealth  like  him !  Night  after  night, 
for  above  a  hundred  years,  hath  he  done  this  penance, 
and  still  must  he  do  it,  till  the  iron  box  he  brought  to 
light,  and  each  separate  coin  be  cleansed  by  grateful 


72  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

tears  of  a  widow  or  an  orphan.  My  spirit  sighs  for 
his  long  vigil  at  the  corner  of  the  market-house ! 

There  are  ghosts  whom  I  tremble  to  meet,  and  cin- 
not  think  of  without  a  shudder.  One  has  the  guilt  of 
blood  upon  him.  The  soul  which  he  thrust  untimely 
forth  has  long  since  been  summoned  from  our  gloomy 
graveyard,  and  dwells  among  the  stars  of  heaven,  too 
far  and  too  high  for  even  the  recollection  of  mortal  an 
guish  to  ascend  thither.  Not  so  the  murderer's  ghost! 
It  is  his  doom  to  spend  all  the  hours  of  darkness  in 
the  spot  which  he  stained  with  innocent  blood,  and  to 
feel  the  hot  stream  —  hot  as  when  it  first  gushed  upon 
his  hand  —  incorporating  itself  with  his  spiritual  sub 
stance.  Thus  his  horrible  crime  is  ever  fresh  within 
him.  Two  other  wretches  are  condemned  to  walk  arm 
in  arm.  They  were  guilty  lovers  in  their  lives,  and 
still,  in  death,  must  wear  the  guise  of  love,  though 
hatred  and  loathing  have  become  their  very  nature 
and  existence.  The  pollution  of  their  mutual  sin  re 
mains  with  them,  and  makes  their  souls  sick  continu 
ally.  Oh,  that  I  might  forget  all  the  dark  shadows 
which  haunt  about  these  graves  !  This  passing 
thought  of  them  has  left  a  stain,  and  will  weigh  me 
down  among  dust  and  sorrow,  beyond  the  time  that 
my  own  transgressions  would  have  kept  me  here. 

There  is  one  shade  among  us,  whose  high  nature  it 
is  good  to  meditate  upon.  He  lived  a  patriot,  and  is 
a  patriot  still.  Posterity  has  forgotten  him.  The 
simple  slab,  of  red  freestone,  that  bore  his  name,  wa? 
broken  long  ago,  and  is  now  covered  by  the  gradual 
accumulation  of  the  soil.  A  tuft  of  thistles  is  his  only 
monument.  This  upright  spirit  came  to  his  grave, 
after  a  lengthened  life,  with  so  little  stain  of  earth, 
that  he  might,  almost  immediately,  have  trodden  the 


GRA  VES  AND  GOBLINS.  73 

pathway  of  the  sky.  But  his  strong  love  of  country 
chained  him  down,  to  share  its  vicissitudes  of  weal 
or  woe.  With  such  deep  yearning  in  his  soul,  he  was 
unfit  for  heaven.  That  noblest  virtue  has  the  effect  of 
sin,  and  keeps  his  pure  and  lofty  spirit  in  a  penance, 
which  may  not  terminate  till  America  be  again  a  wil 
derness.  Not  that  there  is  no  joy  for  the  dead  patriot. 
Can  he  fail  to  experience  it,  while  he  contemplates  the 
mighty  and  increasing  power  of  the  land,  which  he 
protected  in  its  infancy  ?  No ;  there  is  much  to  glad 
den  him.  But  sometimes  I  dread  to  meet  him,  as  he 
returns  from  the  bedchambers  of  rulers  and  politicians, 
after  diving  into  their  secret  motives,  and  searching 
out  their  aims.  He  looks  round  him  with  a  stern  and 
awful  sadness,  and  vanishes  into  his  neglected  grave. 
Let  nothing  sordid  or  selfish  defile  your  deeds  or 
thoughts,  ye  great  men  of  the  day,  lest  ye  grieve  the 
noble  dead. 

Few  ghosts  take  such  an  endearing  interest  as  this, 
even  in  their  own  private  affairs.  It  made  me  rather 
sad,  at  first,  to  find  how  soon  the  flame  of  love  expires 
amid  the  chill  damps  of  the  tomb ;  so  much  the  sooner, 
the  more  fiercely  it  may  have  burned.  Forget  your 
dead  mistress,  youth !  She  has  already  forgotten  you. 
Maiden,  cease  to  weep  for  your  buried  lover  !  He  will 
know  nothing  of  your  tears,  nor  value  them  if  he  did. 
Yet  it  were  blasphemy  to  say  that  true  love  is  other 
than  immortal.  It  is  an  earthly  passion,  of  which  I 
speak,  mingled  with  little  that  is  spiritual,  and  must 
therefore  perish  with  the  perishing  clay.  When  souls 
have  loved,  there  is  no  falsehood  or  forgetfulness. 
Maternal  affection,  too,  is  strong  as  adamant.  There 
are  mothers  here,  among  us,  who  might  have  been  in 
heaven  fifty  years  ago,  if  they  could  forbear  to  cherish 


74  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

earthly  joy  and  sorrow,  reflected  from  the  bosoms  of 
their  children.  Husbands  and  wives  have  a  comfort 
able  gift  of  oblivion,  especially  when  secure  of  the 
faith  of  their  living  halves.  Jealousy,  it  is  true,  will 
play  the  devil  with  a  ghost,  driving  him  to  the  bedside 
of  secondary  wedlock,  there  to  scowl,  unseen,  and  gib 
ber  inaudible  remonstrances.  Dead  wives,  however 
jealous  in  their  lifetime,  seldom  feel  this  posthumous 
torment  so  acutely. 

Many,  many  things,  that  appear  most  important 
while  we  walk  the  busy  street,  lose  all  their  interest 
the  moment  we  are  borne  into  the  quiet  graveyard 
which  borders  it.  For  my  own  part,  my  spirit  had  not 
become  so  mixed  up  with  earthly  existence,  as  to  be 
now  held  in  an  unnatural  combination,  or  tortured 
much  with  retrospective  cares.  I  still  love  my  parents 
and  a  younger  sister,  who  remain  among  the  living, 
and  often  grieve  me  by  their  patient  sorrow  for  the 
dead.  Each  separate  tear  of  theirs  is  an  added  weight 
upon  my  soul,  and"  lengthens  my  stay  among  the 
graves.  As  to  other  matters,  it  exceedingly  rejoices 
me  that  my  summons  came  before  I  had  time  to  write 
a  projected  poem,  which  was  highly  imaginative  in  con 
ception,  and  could  not  have  failed  to  give  me  a  trium 
phant  rank  in  the  choir  of  our  native  bards.  Nothing 
is  so  much  to  be  deprecated  as  posthumous  renown. 
It  keeps  the  immortal  spirit  from  the  proper  bliss  of 
his  celestial  state,  and  causes  him  to  feed  upon  the  im 
pure  breath  of  mortal  man,  till  sometimes  he  forgets 
that  there  are  starry  realms  above  him.  Few  poets  — 
infatuated  that  they  are  !  —  soar  upward  while  the 
least  whisper  of  their  name  is  heard  on  earth.  On 
Sabbath  evenings,  my  sisters  sit  by  the  fireside,  be 
tween  our  father  and  mother,  and  repeat  some  hymns 


GRAVES  AND   GOBLINS.  75 

of  mine,  which  they  have  often  heard  from  my  own 
lips,  ere  the  tremulous  voice  left  them  forever.  Little 
do  they  think,  those  dear  ones,  that  the  dead  stands 
listening  in  the  glimmer  of  the  firelight,  and  is  almost 
gifted  with  a  visible  shape  by  the  fond  intensity  of 
their  remembrance. 

Now  shall  the  reader  know  a  grief  of  the  poor  ghost 
that  speaks  to  him ;  a  grief,  but  not  a  helpless  one. 
Since  I  have  dwelt  among  the  graves,  they  bore  the 
corpse  of  a  young  maiden  hither,  and  laid  her  in  the 
old  ancestral  vault,  which  is  hollowed  in  the  side  of  a 
grassy  bank.  It  has  a  door  of  stone,  with  rusty  iron 
hinges,  and  above  it,  a  rude  sculpture  of  the  family 
arms,  and  inscriptions  of  all  their  names  who  have 
been  buried  there,  including  sire  and  son,  mother  and 
daughter,  of  an  ancient  colonial  race.  All  of  her 
lineage  had  gone  before,  and  when  the  young  maiden 
followed,  the  portal  was  closed  forever.  The  night 
after  her  burial,  when  the  other  ghosts  were  flitting 
about  their  graves,  forth  came  the  pale  virgin's  shad 
ow,  with  the  rest,  but  knew  not  whither  to  go,  nor 
whom  to  haunt,  so  lonesome  had  she  been  on  earth. 
She  stood  by  the  ancient  sepulchre,  looking  upward  to 
the  bright  stars,  as  if  she  would,  even  then,  begin  her 
flight.  Her  sadness  made  me  sad.  That  night  and 
the  next,  I  stood  near  her,  in  the  moonshine,  but 
dared  not  speak,  because  she  seemed  purer  than  all 
the  ghosts,  and  fitter  to  converse  with  angels  than 
with  men.  But  the  third  bright  eve,  still  gazing  up 
ward  to  the  glory  of  the  heavens,  she  sighed,  and  said, 
"  When  will  my  mother  come  for  me  ?  "  Her  low, 
sweet  voice  emboldened  me  to  speak,  and  she  was 
kind  and  gentle,  though  so  pure,  and  answered  me 
again.  From  that  time,  always  at  the  ghostly  hour, 


76  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

I  sought  the  old  tomb  of  her  fathers,  and  either  found 
her  standing  by  the  door,  or  knocked,  and  she  ap 
peared.  Blessed  creature,  that  she  was ;  her  chaste 
spirit  hallowed  mine,  and  imparted  such  a  celestial 
buoyancy,  that  I  longed  to  grasp  her  hand,  and  fly,  — 
upward,  aloft,  aloft !  I  thought,  too,  that  she  only 
lingered  here,  till  my  earthlier  soul  should  be  puri 
fied  for  heaven.  One  night,  when  the  stars  threw 
down  the  light  that  shadows  love,  I  stole  forth  to  the 
accustomed  spot,  and  knocked,  with  my  airy  fingers,  at 
her  door.  She  answered  not.  Again  I  knocked,  and 
breathed  her  name.  Where  was  she  ?  At  once,  the 
truth  fell  on  my  miserable  spirit  and  crushed  it  to  the 
earth,  among  dead  men's  bones  and  mouldering  dust, 
groaning  in  cold  and  desolate  agony.  Her  penance 
was  over !  She  had  taken  her  trackless  flight,  and 
had  found  a  home  in  the  purest  radiance  of  the  upper 
stars,  leaving  me  to  knock  at  the  stone  portal  of  the 
darksome  sepulchre.  But  I  know  —  I  know,  that  an 
gels  hurried  her  away,  or  surely  she  would  have  whis 
pered  ere  she  fled ! 

She  is  gone  !  How  could  the  grave  imprison  that 
unspotted  one !  But  her  pure,  ethereal  spirit  will  not 
quite  forget  me,  nor  soar  too  high  in  bliss,  till  I  as 
cend  to  join  her.  Soon,  soon  be  that  hour !  I  am 
weary  of  the  earth -damps;  they  burden  me;  they 
choke  me  !  Already,  I  can  float  in  the  moonshine ; 
the  faint  starlight  will  almost  bear  up  my  footsteps  ; 
the  perfume  of  flowers,  which  grosser  spirits  love,  is 
now  too  earthly  a  luxury  for  me.  Grave !  Grave  ! 
thou  art  not  my  home.  I  must  flit  a  little  longer  in 
thy  night  gloom,  and  then  be  gone,  —  far  from  the 
dust  of  the  living  and  the  dead,  —  far  from  the  cor 
ruption  that  is  around  me,  but  no  more  within ! 


GRAVES  AND   GOBLINS.  77 

A  few  times  I  have  visited  the  chamber  of  one  who 
walks,  obscure  and  lonely,  on  his  mortal  pilgrimage. 
He  will  leave  not  many  living  friends,  when  he  goes  to 
join  the  dead,  where  his  thoughts  often  stray,  and  he 
might  better  be.  I  steal  into  his  sleep,  and  play  my 
part  among  the  figures  of  his  dreams.  I  glide  through 
the  moonlight  of  his  waking  fancy,  and  whisper  con 
ceptions,  which,  with  a  strange  thrill  of  fear,  he  writes 
down  as  his  own.  I  stand  beside  him  now,  at  midnight, 
telling  these  dreamy  truths  with  a  voice  so  dream-like, 
that  he  mistakes  them  for  fictions  of  a  brain  too  prone 
to  such.  Yet  he  glances  behind  him  and  shivers,  while 
the  lamp  burns  pale.  Farewell,  dreamer,  —  waking 
or  sleeping !  Your  brightest  dreams  are  fled ;  your 
mind  grows  too  hard  and  cold  for  a  spiritual  guest  to 
enter ;  you  are  earthly,  too,  and  have  all  the  sins  of 
earth.  The  ghost  will  visit  you  no  more. 

But  where  is  the  maiden,  holy  and  pure,  though 
wearing  a  form  of  clay,  that  would  have  me  bend  over 
her  pillow  at  midnight,  and  leave  a  blessing  there? 
With  a  silent  invocation,  let  her  summon  me.  Shrink 
not,  maiden,  when  I  come!  .  In  life,  I  was  a  high- 
souled  youth,  meditative,  yet  seldom  sad,  full  of  chaste 
fancies,  and  stainless  from  all  grosser  sin.  And  now, 
in  death,  I  bring  no  loathsome  smell  of  the  grave,  nor 
ghostly  terrors,  —  but  gentle,  and  soothing,  and  sweetly 
pensive  influences.  Perhaps,  just  fluttering  for  the 
skies,  my  visit  may  hallow  the  wellsprings  of  thy 
thought,  and  make  thee  heavenly  here  on  earth.  Then 
shall  pure  dreams  and  holy  meditations  bless  thy  life ; 
nor  thy  sainted  spirit  linger  round  the  grave,  but  seek 
the  upper  stars,  and  meet  me  there ! 


DR.   BULLIVANT. 

THIS  person  was  not  eminent  enough,  either  by  na 
ture  or  circumstance,  to  deserve  a  public  memorial 
simply  for  his  own  sake,  after  the  lapse  of  a  century 
and  a  half  from  the  era  in  which  he  flourished.  His 
character,  in  the  view  which  we  propose  to  take  of  it, 
may  give  a  species  of  distinctness  and  point  to  some 
remarks  on  the  tone  and  composition  of  New  England 
society,  modified  as  it  became  by  new  ingredients  from 
the  eastern  world,  and  by  the  attrition  of  sixty  or 
seventy  years  over  the  rugged  peculiarities  of  the  orig 
inal  settlers.  We  are  perhaps  accustomed  to  employ 
too  sombre  a  pencil  in  picturing  the  earlier  times 
among  the  Puritans,  because,  at  our  cold  distance,  we 
form  our  ideas  almost  wholly  from  their  severest  fea 
tures.  It  is  like  gazing  on  some  scenes  in  the  land 
which  we  inherit  from  them ;  we  see  the  mountains, 
rising  sternly  and  with  frozen  summits  up  to  heaven, 
and  the  forests,  waving  in  massy  depths  where  sun 
shine  seems  a  profanation,  and  we  see  the  gray  mist, 
like  the  duskiness  of  years,  shedding  a  chill  obscurity 
over  the  whole ;  but  the  green  and  pleasant  spots  in 
the  hollow  of  the  hills,  the  warm  places  in  the  heart  of 
what  looks  desolate,  are  hidden  from  our  eyes.  Still, 
however,  a  prevailing  characteristic  of  the  age  was 
gloom,  or  something  which  cannot  be  more  accurately 
expressed  than  by  that  term,  and  its  long  shadow,  fall 
ing  over  all  the  intervening  years,  is  visible,  though 
not  too  distinctly,  upon  ourselves.  Without  material 


DR.  BULLIVANT.  79 

detriment  to  a  deep  and  solid  happiness,  the  frolic  of 
the  mind  was  so  habitually  chastened,  that  persons 
have  gained  a  nook  in  history  by  the  mere  possession 
of  animal  spirits,  too  exuberant  to  be  confined  within 
the  established  bounds.  Every  vain  jest  and  unprofit 
able  word  was  deemed  an  item  in  the  account  of  crim 
inality,  and  whatever  wit,  or  semblance  thereof,  came 
into  existence,  its  birthplace  was  generally  the  pulpit, 
and  its  parent  some  sour  old  Genevan  divine.  The 
specimens  of  humor  and  satire,  preserved  in  the  ser 
mons  and  controversial  tracts  of  those  days,  are  occa 
sionally  the  apt  expressions  of  pungent  thoughts  ;  but 
oftener  they  are  cruel  torturings  and  twistings  of  trite 
ideas,  disgusting  by  the  wearisome  ingenuity  which 
constitutes  their  only  merit.  Among  a  people  where 
so  few  possessed,  or  were  allowed  to  exercise,  the  art 
of  extracting  the  mirth  which  lies  hidden  like  latent 
caloric  in  almost  everything,  a  gay  apothecary,  such 
as  Dr.  Bullivant,  must  have  been  a  phenomenon. 

We  will  suppose  ourselves  standing  in  Cornhill,  on 
a  pleasant  morning  of  the  year  1670,  about  the  hour 
when  the  shutters  are  unclosed,  and  the  dust  swept 
from  the  doorsteps,  and  when  Business  rubs  its  eyes, 
and  begins  to  plod  sleepily  through  the  town.  The 
street,  instead  of  running  between  lofty  and  continu 
ous  piles  of  brick,  is  but  partially  lined  with  wooden 
buildings  of  various  heights  and  architecture,  in  each 
of  which  the  mercantile  department  is  connected  with 
the  domicile,  like  the  gingerbread  and  candy  shops  of 
an  after-date.  The  signs  have  a  singular  appearance 
to  a  stranger's  eye.  These  are  not  a  barren  record  of 
names  and  occupations,  yellow  letters  on  black  boards, 
but  images  and  hieroglyphics,  sometimes  typifying  the 
principal  commodity  offered  for  sale,  though  generally 


80  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

intended  to  give  an  arbitrary  designation  to  the  estab 
lishment.  Overlooking  the  bearded  Saracens,  the 
Indian  Queens,  and  the  wooden  Bibles,  let  us  direct 
our  attention  to  the  white  post  newly  erected  at  the 
corner  of  the  street,  and  surmounted  by  a  gilded  coun 
tenance  which  flashes  in  the  early  sunbeams  like  veri 
table  gold.  It  is  a  bust  of  ^Esculapius,  evidently  of 
the  latest  London  manufacture;  and  from  the  door 
behind  it  steams  forth  a  mingled  smell  of  musk  and 
assaf oetida,  and  other  drugs  of  potent  perfume,  as  if  an 
appropriate  sacrifice  were  just  laid  upon  the  altar  of 
the  medical  deity.  Five  or  six  idle  people  are  already 
collected,  peeping  curiously  in  at  the  glittering  array 
of  gallipots  and  phials,  and  deciphering  the  labels 
which  tell  their  contents  in  the  mysterious  and  impos 
ing  nomenclature  of  ancient  physic.  They  are  next 
attracted  by  the  printed  advertisement  of  a  Panacea, 
promising  life  but  one  day  short  of  eternity,  and  youth 
and  health  commensurate.  An  old  man,  his  head  as 
white  as  snow,  totters  in  with  a  hasty  clattering  of  his 
staff,  and  becomes  the  earliest  purchaser,  hoping  that 
his  wrinkles  will  disappear  more  swiftly  than  they 
gathered.  The  Doctor  (so  styled  by  courtesy)  shows 
the  upper  half  of  his  person  behind  the  counter,  and 
appears  to  be  a  slender  and  rather  tall  man  ;  his  fea 
tures  are  difficult  to  describe,  possessing  nothing  pe 
culiar,  except  a  flexibility  to  assume  all  characters  in 
turn,  while  his  eye,  shrewd,  quick,  and  saucy,  remains 
the  same  throughout.  Whenever  a  customer  enters 
the  shop,  if  he  desire  a  box  of  pills,  he  receives  with 
them  an  equal  number  of  hard,  round,  dry  jokes,  — 
or  if  a  dose  of  salts,  it  is  mingled  with  a  portion  of  the 
salt  of  Attica,  —  or  if  some  hot,  Oriental  drug,  it  is 
accompanied  by  a  racy  word  or  two  that  tingle  on  the 


DR.   BULLIVANT.  81 

mental  palate,  —  all  without  the  least  additional  cost. 
Then  there  are  twistings  of  mouths  which  never  lost 
their  gravity  before.  As  each  purchaser  retires,  the 
spectators  see  a  resemblance  of  his  visage  pass  over 
that  of  the  apothecary,  in  which  all  the  ludicrous  points 
are  made  most  prominent,  as  if  a  magic  looking-glass 
had  caught  the  reflection,  and  were  making  sport  with 
it.  Unwonted  titterings  arise  and  strengthen  into 
bashful  laughter,  but  are  suddenly  hushed  as  some 
minister,  heavy-eyed  from  his  last  night's  vigil,  or 
magistrate,  armed  with  the  terror  of  the  whipping 
post  and  pillory,  or  perhaps  the  governor  himself,  goes 
by  like  a  dark  cloud  intercepting  the  sunshine. 

About  this  period,  many  causes  began  to  produce  an 
important  change  on  and  beneath  the  surface  of  co 
lonial  society.  The  early  settlers  were  able  to  keep 
within  the  narrowest  limits  of  their  rigid  principles, 
because  they  had  adopted  them  in  mature  life,  and 
from  their  own  deep  conviction,  and  were  strengthened 
in  them  by  that  species  of  enthusiasm,  which  is  as 
sober  and  as  enduring  as  reason  itself.  But  if  their 
immediate  successors  followed  the  same  line  of  con 
duct,  they  were  confined  to  it,  in  a  great  degree,  by 
habits  forced  upon  them,  and  by  the  severe  rule  under 
which  they  were  educated,  and,  in  short,  more  by  re 
straint  than  by  the  free  exercise  of  the  imagination  and 
understanding.  When  therefore  the  old  original  stock, 
the  men  who  looked  heavenward  without  a  wandering 
glance  to  earth,  had  lost  a  part  of  their  domestic  and 
public  influence,  yielding  to  infirmity  or  death,  a  re 
laxation  naturally  ensued  in  their  theory  and  practice 
of  morals  and  religion,  and  became  more  evident  with 
the  daily  decay  of  its  most  strenuous  opponents.  This 
gradual  but  sure  operation  was  assisted  by  the  increas- 

VOL.   XII.  6 


82 


TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 


ing  commercial  importance  of  the  colonies,  whither  a 
new  set  of  emigrants  followed  unworthily  in  the  track 
of  the  pure  -  hearted  Pilgrims.  Gain  being  now  the 
allurement,  and  almost  the  only  one,  since  dissenters 
no  longer  dreaded  persecution  at  home,  the  people  of 
New  England  could  not  remain  entirely  uncontami- 
nated  by  an  extensive  intermixture  with  worldly  men. 
The  trade  carried  on  by  the  colonists  (in  the  face  of 
several  inefficient  acts  of  Parliament)  with  the  whole 
maritime  world,  must  have  had  a  similar  tendency ; 
nor  are  the  desperate  and  dissolute  visitants  of  the 
country  to  be  forgotten  among  the  agents  of  a  moral 
revolution.  Freebooters  from  the  West  Indies  and 
the  Spanish  Main,  —  state  criminals,  implicated  in  the 
numerous  plots  and  conspiracies  of  the  period,  —  fel 
ons,  loaded  with  private  guilt,  —  numbers  of  these 
took  refuge  in  the  provinces,  where  the  authority  of 
the  English  king  was  obstructed  by  a  zealous  spirit 
of  independence,  and  where  a  boundless  wilderness 
enabled  them  to  defy  pursuit.  Thus  the  new  popula 
tion,  temporary  and  permanent,  was  exceedingly  unlike 
the  old,  and  far  more  apt  to  disseminate  their  own 
principles  than  to  imbibe  those  of  the  Puritans.  All 
circumstances  unfavorable  to  virtue  acquired  double 
strength  by  the  licentious  reign  of  Charles  II. ;  though 
perhaps  the  example  of  the  monarch  and  nobility  was 
less  likely  to  recommend  vice  to  the  people  of  New 
England  than  to  those  of  any  other  part  of  the  British 
Empire. 

The  clergy  and  the  elder  magistrates  manifested  a 
quick  sensibility  to  the  decline  of  godliness,  their  ap 
prehensions  being  sharpened  in  this  particular  no  less 
by  a  holy  zeal  than  because  their  credit  and  influence 
were  intimately  connected  with  the  primitive  character 


DR.   BULLIVANT.  83 

of  the  country.  A  Synod,  convened  in  the  year  1679, 
gave  its  opinion  that  the  iniquity  of  the  times  had 
drawn  down  judgments  from  Heaven,  and  proposed 
methods  to  assuage  the  Divine  wrath  by  a  renewal 
of  former  sanctity.  But  neither  the  increased  num 
bers,  nor  the  altered  spirit  of  the  people,  nor  the  just 
sense  of  a  freedom  to  do  wrong,  within  certain  limits, 
would  now  have  permitted  the  exercise  of  that  inquisi 
torial  strictness,  which  had  been  wont  to  penetrate  to 
men's  firesides  and  watch  their  domestic  life,  recogniz 
ing  no  distinction  between  private  ill  conduct  and 
crimes  that  endanger  the  community.  Accordingly, 
the  tide  of  worldly  principles  encroached  more  and 
more  upon  the  ancient  landmarks,  hitherto  esteemed 
the  outer  boundaries  of  virtue.  Society  arranged  it 
self  into  two  classes,  marked  by  strong  shades  of  dif 
ference,  though  separated  by  an  uncertain  line :  in  one 
were  included  the  small  and  feeble  remnant  of  the 
first  settlers,  many  of  their  immediate  descendants,  the 
whole  body  of  the  clergy,  and  all  whom  a  gloomy  tem 
perament,  or  tenderness  of  conscience,  or  timidity  of 
thought,  kept  up  to  the  strictness  of  their  fathers  ;  the 
other  comprehended  the  new  emigrants,  the  gay  and 
thoughtless  natives,  the  favorers  of  Episcopacy,  and  a 
various  mixture  of  liberal  and  enlightened  men  with 
most  of  the  evil-doers  and  unprincipled  adventurers  in 
the  country.  A  vivid  and  rather  a  pleasant  idea  of 
New  England  manners,  when  this  change  had  become 
decided,  is  given  in  the  journal  of  John  Dunton,  a 
cockney  bookseller,  who  visited  Boston  and  other 
towns  of  Massachusetts  with  a  cargo  of  pious  publica 
tions,  suited  to  the  Puritan  market.  Making  due  al 
lowance  for  the  flippancy  of  the  writer,  which  may 
have  given  a  livelier  tone  to  his  descriptions  than 


84  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

truth  precisely  warrants,  and  also  for  his  character, 
which  led  him  chiefly  among  the  gayer  inhabitants, 
there  still  seems  to  have  been  many  who  loved  the 
winecup  and  the  song,  and  all  sorts  of  delightful 
naughtiness.  But  the  degeneracy  of  the  times  had 
made  far  less  progress  in  the  interior  of  the  country 
than  in  the  seaports,  and  until  the  people  lost  the  elec 
tive  privilege,  they  continued  the  government  in  the 
hands  of  those  upright  old  men  who  had  so  long  pos 
sessed  their  confidence.  Uncontrollable  events,  alone, 
gave  a  temporary  ascendency  to  persons  of  another 
stamp.  James  II.,  during  the  four  years  of  his  des 
potic  reign  revoked  the  charters  of  the  American  col 
onies,  arrogated  the  appointment  of  their  magistrates, 
and  annulled  all  those  legal  and  prescriptive  rights 
which  had  hitherto  constituted  them  nearly  indepen 
dent  states.  Among  the  foremost  advocates  of  the 
royal  usurpations  was  Dr.  Bullivant.  Gifted  with  a 
smart  and  ready  intellect,  busy  and  bold,  he  acquired 
great  influence  in  the  new  government,  and  assisted 
Sir  Edmund  Andros,  Edward  Randolph,  and  five  or 
six  others,  to  browbeat  the  council,  and  misrule  the 
Northern  provinces  according  to  their  pleasure.  The 
strength  of  the  popular  hatred  against  this  admin 
istration,  the  actual  tyranny  that  was  exercised,  and 
the  innumerable  fears  and  jealousies,  well  grounded 
and  fantastic,  which  harassed  the  country,  may  be  best 
learned  from  a  work  of  Increase  Mather,  the  "  Re 
markable  Providences  of  the  Earlier  Days  of  Ameri 
can  Colonization."  The  good  divine  (though  writing 
when  a  lapse  of  nearly  forty  years  should  have  tamed 
the  fierceness  of  party  animosity)  speaks  with  the  most 
bitter  and  angry  scorn  of  "  'Pothecary  Bullivant,"  who 
probably  indulged  his  satirical  propensities,  from  the 


DR.  BULLIVANT.  85 

seat  of  power,  in  a  manner  which  rendered  him  an  es 
pecial  object  of  public  dislike.  But  the  people  were 
about  to  play  off  a  piece  of  practical  fun  on  the  Doc 
tor  and  the  whole  of  his  coadjutors,  and  have  the  laugh 
all  to  themselves.  By  the  first  faint  rumor  of  the  at 
tempt  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  on  the  throne,  the 
power  of  James  was  annihilated  in  the  colonies,  and 
long  before  the  abdication  of  the  latter  became  known, 
Sir  Edmund  Andros,  Governor-General  of  New  Eng 
land  and  New  York,  and  fifty  of  the  most  obnoxious 
leaders  of  the  court  party,  were  tenants  of  a  prison. 
We  will  visit  our  old  acquaintance  in  his  adversity. 

The  scene  now  represents  a  room  of  ten  feet  square, 
the  floor  of  which  is  sunk  a  yard  or  two  below  the 
level  of  the  ground  ;  the  walls  are  covered  with  a  dirty 
and  crumbling  plaster,  on  which  appear  a  crowd  of 
ill-favored  and  lugubrious  faces  done  in  charcoal,  and 
the  autographs  and  poetical  attempts  of  a  long  suc 
cession  of  debtors  and  petty  criminals.  Other  fea 
tures  of  the  apartment  are  a  deep  fireplace  (superflu 
ous  in  the  sultriness  of  the  summer's  day),  a  door  of 
hard-hearted  oak,  and  a  narrow  window  high  in  the 
wall,  where  the  glass  has  long  been  broken,  while  the 
iron  bars  retain  all  their  original  strength.  Through 
this  opening  come  the  sound  of  passing  footsteps  in  the 
public  street,  and  the  voices  of  children  at  play.  The 
furniture  consists  of  a  bed,  or  rather  an  old  sack  of 
barley  straw,  thrown  down  in  the  corner  farthest  from 
the  door,  and  a  chair  and  table,  both  aged  and  infirm, 
and  leaning  against  the  side  of  the  room,  besides 
lending  a  friendly  support  to  each  other.  The  atmos 
phere  is  stifled  and  of  an  ill  smell,  as  if  it  had  been 
kept  close  prisoner  for  half  a  century,  and  had  lost 
all  its  pure  and  clastic  nature  by  feeding  the  tainted 


86  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

breath  of  the  vicious  and  the  sighs  of  the  unfortunate. 
Such  is  the  present  abode  of  the  man  of  medicine  and 
politics,  and  his  own  appearance  forms  no  contrast  to 
the  accompaniments.  His  wig  is  unpowdered,  out  of 
curl,  and  put  on  awry  ;  the  dust  of  many  weeks  has 
worked  its  way  into  the  web  of  his  coat  and  small 
clothes,  and  his  knees  and  elbows  peep  forth  to  ask 
why  they  are  so  ill  clad ;  his  stockings  are  ungartered, 
his  shoes  down  at  the  heel,  his  waistcoat  is  without  a 
button,  and  discloses  a  shirt  as  dingy  as  the  remnant 
of  snow  in  a  showery  April  day.  His  shoulders  have 
become  rounder,  and  his  whole  person  is  more  bent 
and  drawn  together,  since  we  last  saw  him,  and  his 
face  has  exchanged  the  glory  of  wit  and  humor  for  a 
sheepish  dulness.  At  intervals,  the  Doctor  walks  the 
room,  with  an  irregular  and  shuffling  pace  ;  anon  he 
throws  himself  flat  on  the  sack  of  barley  straw,  mut 
tering  very  reprehensible  expressions  between  his 
teeth  ;  then  again  he  starts  to  his  feet,  and  journeying 
from  corner  to  corner,  finally  sinks  into  the  chair, 
forgetful  of  its  three-legged  infirmity  till  it  lets  him 
down  upon  the  floor.  The  grated  window,  his  only 
medium  of  intercourse  with  the  world,  serves  but  to 
admit  additional  vexations.  Every  few  moments  the 
steps  of  the  passengers  are  heard  to  pause,  and  some 
well-known  face  appears  in  the  free  sunshine  behind 
the  iron  bars,  brimful  of  mirth  and  drollery,  the  owner 
whereof  stands  on  tiptoe  to  tickle  poor  Dr.  Bullivant 
with  a  stinging  sarcasm.  Then  laugh  the  little  boys 
around  the  prison  door,  and  the  wag  goes  chuckling 
away.  The  apothecary  would  fain  retaliate,  but  all 
his  quips  and  repartees,  and  sharp  and  facetious  fan 
cies,  once  so  abundant,  seem  to  have  been  transferred 
from  himself  to  the  sluggish  brains  of  his  enemies. 


DR.  BULL  I VA  NT.  87 

While  endeavoring  to  condense  his  whole  intellect  into 
one  venomous  point,  in  readiness  for  the  next  assail 
ant,  he  is  interrupted  by  the  entrance  of  the  turnkey 
with  the  prison  fare  of  Indian  bread  and  water.  With 
these  dainties  we  leave  him. 

When  the  turmoil  of  the  Revolution  had  subsided, 
and  the  authority  of  William  and  Mary  was  fixed  on 
a  quiet  basis  throughout  the  colonies,  the  deposed  gov 
ernor  and  some  of  his  partisans  were  sent  home  to  the 
new  court,  and  the  others  released  from  imprisonment. 
The  New-Englanders,  as  a  people,  are  not  apt  to  retain 
a  revengeful  sense  of  injury,  and  nowhere,  perhaps, 
could  a  politician,  however  odious  in  his  power,  live 
more  peacefully  in  his  nakedness  and  disgrace.  Dr. 
Bullivant  returned  to  his  former  occupation,  and  spent 
rather  a  desirable  old  age.  Though  he  sometimes  hit 
hard  with  a  jest,  yet  few  thought  of  taking  offence ; 
for  whenever  a  man  habitually  indulges  his  tongue  at 
the  expense  of  all  his  associates,  they  provide  against 
the  common  annoyance  by  tacitly  agreeing  to  consider 
his  sarcasms  as  null  and  void.  Thus  for  many  years, 
a  gray  old  man  with  a  stoop  in  his  gait,  he  continued 
to  sweep  out  his  shop  at  eight  o'clock  in  summer 
mornings,  and  nine  in  the  winter,  and  to  waste  whole 
hours  in  idle  talk  and  irreverent  merriment,  making  it 
his  glory  to  raise  the  laughter  of  silly  people,  and  his 
delight  to  sneer  at  them  in  his  sleeve.  At  length,  one 
pleasant  day,  the  door  and  shutters  of  his  establish 
ment  kept  closed  from  sunrise  till  sunset,  and  his 
cronies  marvelled  a  moment,  and  passed  on  ;  a  week 
after,  the  rector  of  King's  Chapel  said  the  death-rite 
over  Dr.  Bullivant ;  and  within  the  month  a  new  apoth 
ecary,  and  a  new  stock  of  drugs  and  medicines,  made 
their  appearance  at  the  gilded  Head  of  ^Esculapius. 


A  BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS. 

WE  have  before  us  a  volume  of  autograph  letters, 
chiefly  of  soldiers  and  statesmen  of  the  Revolution, 
and  addressed  to  a  good  and  brave  man,  General 
Palmer,  who  himself  drew  his  sword  in  the  cause. 
They  are  profitable  reading  in  a  quiet  afternoon,  and 
in  a  mood  withdrawn  from  too  intimate  relation  with 
the  present  time ;  so  that  we  can  glide  backward  some 
three  quarters  of  a  century,  and  surround  ourselves 
with  the  ominous  sublimity  of  circumstances  that  then 
frowned  upon  the  writers.  To  give  them  their  full 
effect,  we  should  imagine  that  these  letters  have  this 
moment  been  brought  to  town  by  the  splashed  and 
way-worn  post-rider,  or  perhaps  by  an  orderly  dra 
goon,  who  has  ridden  in  a  perilous  hurry  to  deliver  his 
despatches.  They  are  magic  scrolls,  if  read  in  the 
right  spirit.  The  roll  of  the  drum  and  the  fanfare  of 
the  trumpet  is  latent  in  some  of  them ;  and  in  others, 
an  echo  of  the  oratory  that  resounded  in  the  old  halls 
of  the  Continental  Congress,  at  Philadelphia ;  or  the 
words  may  come  to  us  as  with  the  living  utterance  of 
one  of  those  illustrious  men,  speaking  face  to  face,  in 
friendly  communion.  Strange,  that  the  mere  identity 
of  paper  and  ink  should  be  so  powerful.  The  same 
thoughts  might  look  cold  and  ineffectual,  in  a  printed 
book.  Human  nature  craves  a  certain  materialism, 
and  clings  pertinaciously  to  what  is  tangible,  as  if  that 
were  of  more  importance  than  the  spirit  accidentally 
involved  in  it.  And,  in  truth,  the  original  manuscript 


A   BOOK   OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  89 

has  always  something  which  print  itself  must  inevita 
bly  lose.  An  erasure,  even  a  blot,  a  casual  irregular 
ity  of  hand,  and  all  such  little  imperfections  of  me 
chanical  execution,  bring  us  close  to  the  writer,  and 
perhaps  convey  some  of  those  subtle  intimations  for 
which  language  has  no  shape. 

There  are  several  letters  from  John  Adams,  written 
in  a  small,  hasty,  ungraceful  hand,  but  earnest,  and 
with  no  unnecessary  flourish.  The  earliest  is  dated  at 
Philadelphia,  September  26,  1774,  about  twenty  days 
after  the  first  opening  of  the  Continental  Congress. 
We  look  at  this  old  yellow  document,  scribbled  on  half 
a  sheet  of  foolscap,  and  ask  of  it  many  questions  for 
which  words  have  no  response.  We  would  fain  know 
what  were  their  mutual  impressions,  when  all  those 
venerable  faces,  that  have  since  been  traced  on  steel, 
or  chiselled  out  of  marble,  and  thus  made  familiar  to 
posterity,  first  met  one  another's  gaze !  Did  one  spirit 
harmonize  them,  in  spite  of  the  dissimilitude  of  man- 
ners  between  the  North  and  the  South,  which  were 
now  for  the  first  time  brought  into  political  relations  ? 
Could  the  Virginian  descendant  of  the  Cavaliers,  and 
the  New-Englander  with  his  hereditary  Puritanism,  — 
the  aristocratic  Southern  planter,  and  the  self-made 
man  from  Massachusetts  or  Connecticut,  —  at  once 
feel  that  they  were  countrymen  and  brothers  ?  What 
did  John  Adams  think  of  Jefferson  ?  —  and  Samuel 
Adams  of  Patrick  Henry  ?  Did  not  North  and  South 
combine  in  their  deference  for  the  sage  Franklin,  so 
long  the  defender  of  the  colonies  in  England,  and 
whose  scientific  renown  was  already  world-wide  ?  And 
was  there  yet  any  whispered  prophecy,  any  vague  con 
jecture,  circulating  among  the  delegates,  as  to  the  des 
tiny  which  might  be  in  reserve  for  one  stately  man, 


90  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

who  sat,  for  the  most  part,  silent  among  them? — what 
station  he  was  to  assume  in  the  world's  history? — and 
how  many  statues  would  repeat  his  form  and  counte 
nance,  and  successively  crumble  beneath  his  immor 
tality? 

The  letter  before  us  does  not  answer  these  inquiries. 
Its  main  feature  is  the  strong  expression  of  the  uncer 
tainty  and  awe  that  pervaded  even  the  firm  hearts  of 
the  Old  Congress,  while  anticipating  the  struggle 
which  was  to  ensue.  "  The  commencement  of  hostili 
ties,"  it  says,  "  is  exceedingly  dreaded  here.  It  is 
thought  that  an  attack  upon  the  troops,  even  should 
it  prove  successful,  would  certainly  involve  the  whole 
continent  in  a  war.  It  is  generally  thought  that  the 
Ministry  would  rejoice  at  a  rupture  in  Boston,  because 
it  would  furnish  an  excuse  to  the  people  at  home " 
[this  was  the  last  time,  we  suspect,  that  John  Adams 
spoke  of  England  thus  affectionately],  "  and  unite 
them  in  an  opinion  of  the  necessity  of  pushing  hostili 
ties  against  us." 

His  next  letter  bears  on  the  superscription,  "  Fa 
vored  by  General  Washington."  The  date  is  June  20, 
1775,  three  days  after  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  the 
news  of  which  could  not  yet  have  arrived  at  Philadel 
phia.  But  the  war,  so  much  dreaded,  had  begun,  on 
the  quiet  banks  of  Concord  River  ;  an  army  of  twenty 
thousand  men  was  beleaguering  Boston ;  and  here  was 
Washington  journeying  northward  to  take  the  com 
mand.  It  seems  to  place  us  in  a  nearer  relation  with 
the  hero,  to  find  him  performing  the  little  courtesy  of 
bearing  a  letter  between  friend  and  friend,  and  to  hold 
in  our  hands  the  very  document  intrusted  to  such  a 
messenger.  John  Adams  says  simply,  "  We  send  you 
Generals  Washington  and  Lee  for  your  comfort ;  "  but 


A   BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  91 

adds  nothing  in  regard  to  the  character  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief.  This  letter  displays  much  of  the 
writer's  ardent  temperament ;  if  he  had  been  anywhere 
but  in  the  hall  of  Congress,  it  would  have  been  in  the 
intrenchment  before  Boston. 

"  I  hope,"  he  writes,  "  a  good  account  will  be  given 
of  Gage,  Haldiman,  Burgoyne,  Clinton,  and  Howe,  be 
fore  winter.  Such  a  wretch  as  Howe,  with  a  statue 
in  honor  of  his  family  in  Westminster  Abbey,  erected 
by  the  Massachusetts,  to  come  over  with  the  design 
to  cut  the  throats  of  the  Massachusetts  people,  is  too 
much.  I  most  sincerely,  coolly,  and  devoutly  wish 
that  a  lucky  ball  or  bayonet  may  make  a  signal  ex 
ample  of  him,  in  warning  to  all  such  unprincipled,  un 
sentimental  miscreants  for  the  future!  " 

He  goes  on  in  a  strain  that  smacks  somewhat  of 
aristocratic  feeling :  "  Our  camp  will  be  an  illustrious 
school  of  military  virtue,  and  will  be  resorted  to  and 
frequented,  as  such,  by  gentlemen  in  great  numbers 
from  the  other  colonies."  The  term  "gentleman" 
has  seldom  been  used  in  this  sense  subsequently  to  the 
Revolution.  Another  letter  introduces  us  to  two  of 
these  gentlemen,  Messrs.  Acquilla  Hall  and  Josias 
Carvill,  volunteers,  who  are  recommended  as  "  of  the 
first  families  in  Maryland,  and  possessing  indepen 
dent  fortunes." 

After  the  British  had  been  driven  out  of  Boston, 
Adams  cries  out,  "  Fortify,  fortify ;  and  never  let  them 
get  in  again !  "  It  is  agreeable  enough  to  perceive 
the  filial  affection  with  which  John  Adams,  and  the 
other  delegates  from  the  North,  regard  New  England, 
and  especially  the  good  old  capital  of  the  Puritans. 
Their  love  of  country  was  hardly  yet  so  diluted  as  to 
extend  over  the  whole  thirteen  colonies,  which  were 


92  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

rather  looked  upon  as  allies  than  as  composing  one 
nation.  In  truth,  the  patriotism  of  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States  is  a  sentiment  by  itself  of  a  peculiar 
nature,  and  requiring  a  lifetime,  or  at  least  the  custom 
of  many  years,  to  naturalize  it  among  the  other  posses 
sions  of  the  heart. 

The  collection  is  enriched  by  a  letter  —  dated 
"Cambridge,  August  26,  1775" — from  Washington 
himself.  He  wrote  it  in  that  house,  —  now  so  vener 
able  with  his  memory,  —  in  that  very  room,  where  his 
bust  now  stands  upon  a  poet's  table ;  from  this  sheet 
of  paper  passed  the  hand  that  held  the  leading-staff ! 
Nothing  can  be  more  perfectly  in  keeping  with  all 
other  manifestations  of  Washington  than  the  whole 
visible  aspect  and  embodiment  of  this  letter.  The 
manuscript  is  as  clear  as  daylight ;  the  punctuation  ex 
act,  to  a  comma.  There  is  a  calm  accuracy  through 
out,  which  seems  the  production  of  a  species  of  intelli 
gence  that  cannot  err,  and  which,  if  we  may  so  speak, 
would  affect  us  with  a  more  human  warmth,  if  we 
could  conceive  it  capable  of  some  slight  human  error. 
The  chirography  is  characterized  by  a  plain  and  easy 
grace,  which,  in  the  signature,  is  somewhat  elaborated, 
and  becomes  a  type  of  the  personal  manner  of  a  gen 
tleman  of  the  old  school,  but  without  detriment  to  the 
truth  and  clearness  that  distinguish  the  rest  of  the 
manuscript.  The  lines  are  as  straight  and  equidis 
tant  as  if  ruled ;  and,  from  beginning  to  end,  there  is 
no  physical  symptom  —  as  how  should  there  be  ?  —  of 
a  varying  mood,  of  jets  of  emotion,  or  any  of  those 
fluctuating  feelings  that  pass  from  the  hearts  into  the 
fingers  of  common  men.  The  paper  itself  (like  most 
of  those  Eevolutionary  letters,  which  are  written  on 
fabrics  fit  to  endure  the  burden  of  ponderous  and 


A   BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  93 

earnest  thought)  is  stout,  and  of  excellent  quality,  and 
bears  the  water-mark  of  Britannia,  surmounted  by  the 
Crown.  The  subject  of  the  letter  is  a  statement  of 
reasons  for  not  taking  possession  of  Point  Alderton ; 
a  position  commanding  the  entrance  of  Boston  Har 
bor.  After  explaining  the  difficulties  of  the  case, 
arising  from  his  want  of  men  and  munitions  for  the 
adequate  defence  of  the  lines  which  he  already  occu 
pies,  Washington  proceeds  :  "  To  you,  sir,  who  are  a 
well-wisher  to  the  cause,  and  can  reason  upon  the  ef 
fects  of  such  conduct,  I  may  open  myself  with  free 
dom,  because  no  improper  disclosures  will  be  made  of 
our  situation.  But  I  cannot  expose  my  weakness  to 
the  enemy  (though  I  believe  they  are  pretty  well  in 
formed  of  everything  that  passes),  by  telling  this  and 
that  man,  who  are  daily  pointing  out  this,  and  that, 
and  t'  other  place,  of  all  the  motives  that  govern  my 
actions ;  notwithstanding  I  know  what  will  be  the  con 
sequence  of  not  doing  it,  —  namely,  that  I  shall  be  ac 
cused  of  inattention  to  the  public  service,  and  perhaps 
of  want  of  spirit  to  prosecute  it.  But  this  shall  have 
no  effect  upon  my  conduct.  I  will  steadily  (as  far  as 
my  judgment  will  assist  me)  pursue  such  measures  as 
I  think  conducive  to  the  interest  of  the  cause,  and  rest 
satisfied  under  any  obloquy  that  shall  be  thrown,  con 
scious  of  having  discharged  my  duty  to  the  best  of  my 
abilities." 

The  above  passage,  like  every  other  passage  that 
could  be  quoted  from  his  pen,  is  characteristic  of 
Washington,  and  entirely  in  keeping  with  the  calm 
elevation  of  his  soul.  Yet  how  imperfect  a  glimpse 
do  we  obtain  of  him,  through  the  medium  of  this  or 
any  of  his  letters !  We  imagine  him  writing  calmly, 
with  a  hand  that  never  falters  ;  his  majestic  faco 


94  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

neither  darkens  nor  gleams  with  any  momentary  ebul 
lition  of  feeling,  or  irregularity  of  thought ;  and  thus 
flows  forth  an  expression  precisely  to  the  extent  of  his 
purpose,  no  more,  no  less.  Thus  much  we  may  con 
ceive.  But  still  we  have  not  grasped  the  man  ;  we 
have  caught  no  glimpse  of  his  interior ;  we  have  not 
detected  his  personality.  It  is  the  same  with  all  the 
recorded  traits  of  his  daily  life.  The  collection  of 
them,  by  different  observers,  seems  sufficiently  abun 
dant,  and  strictly  harmonizes  with  itself,  yet  never 
brings  us  into  intimate  relationship  with  the  hero,  nor 
makes  us  feel  the  warmth  and  the  human  throb  of  his 
heart.  What  can  be  the  reason  ?  Is  it,  that  his  great 
nature  was  adapted  to  stand  in  relation  to  his  country, 
as  man  stands  towards  man,  but  could  not  individual 
ize  itself  in  brotherhood  to  an  individual  ? 

There  are  two  from  Franklin,  the  earliest  dated, 
"  London,  August  8,  1767,"  and  addressed  to  "  Mrs. 
Franklin,  at  Philadelphia."  He  was  then  in  England, 
as  agent  for  the  colonies  in  their  resistance  to  the  op 
pressive  policy  of  Mr.  Grenville's  administration.  The 
letter,  however,  makes  no  reference  to  political  or  other 
business.  It  contains  only  ten  or  twelve  lines,  begin 
ning,  "  My  dear  child,"  and  conveying  an  impression 
of  long  and  venerable  matrimony  which  has  lost  all  its 
romance,  but  retained  a  familiar  and  quiet  tenderness. 
He  speaks  of  making  a  little  excursion  into  the  coun 
try  for  his  health  ;  mentions  a  larger  letter,  despatched 
by  another  vessel ;  alludes  with  homely  affability  to 
"  Mrs.  Stevenson,"  "  Sally,"  and  "  our  dear  Polly  "  ; 
desires  to  be  remembered  to  "  all  inquiring  friends  "  ; 
and  signs  himself,  "  Your  ever  loving  husband."  In 
this  conjugal  epistle,  brief  and  unimportant  as  it  is, 
there  are  the  elements  that  summon  up  the  past,  and 


A   BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  95 

enable  us  to  create  anew  the  man,  his  connections  and 
circumstances.  We  can  see  the  sage  in  his  London 
lodgings,  —  with  his  wig  cast  aside,  and  replaced  by  a 
velvet  cap,  —  penning  this  very  letter ;  and  then  can 
step  across  the  Atlantic,  and  behold  its  reception  by 
the  elderly,  but  still  comely,  Madam  Franklin,  who 
breaks  the  seal  and  begins  to  read,  first  remembering 
to  put  on  her  spectacles.  The  seal,  by  the  way,  is  a 
pompous  one  of  armorial  bearings,  rather  symbolical 
of  the  dignity  of  the  Colonial  Agent,  and  Postmaster 
General  of  America,  than  of  the  humble  origin  of  the 
Philadelphia  printer.  The  writing  is  in  the  free,  quick 
style  of  a  man  with  great  practice  of  the  pen,  and  is 
particularly  agreeable  to  the  reader. 

Another  letter  from  the  same  famous  hand  is  ad 
dressed  to  General  Palmer,  and  dated,  "  Passy,  Octo 
ber  27,  1779."  By  an  indorsement  on  the  outside  it 
appears  to  have  been  transmitted  to  the  United  States 
through  the  medium  of  Lafayette.  Franklin  was  now 
the  ambassador  of  his  country  at  the  Court  of  Ver 
sailles,  enjoying  an  immense  celebrity,  caressed  by  the 
French  ladies,  and  idolized  alike  by  the  fashionable 
and  the  learned,  who  saw  something  sublime  and  phil 
osophic  even  in  his  blue  yarn  stockings.  Still,  as  be 
fore,  he  writes  with  the  homeliness  and  simplicity  that 
cause  a  human  face  to  look  forth  from  the  old,  yellow 
sheet  of  paper,  and  in  words  that  make  our  ears  re 
echo,  as  with  the  sound  of  his  long-extinct  utterance. 
Yet  this  brief  epistle,  like  the  former,  has  so  little  of 
tangible  matter  that  we  are  ashamed  to  copy  it. 

Next,  we  come  to  the  fragment  of  a  letter  by  Sam 
uel  Adams ;  an  autograph  more  utterly  devoid  of  orna 
ment  or  flourish  than  any  other  in  the  collection.  It 
would  not  have  been  characteristic,  had  his  pen  traced 


96  TALES   AND  SKETCHES. 

so  much  as  a  hair-line  in  tribute  to  grace,  beauty,  or 
the  elaborateness  of  manner ;  for  this  earnest-hearted 
man  had  been  produced  out  of  the  past  elements  of  his 
native  land,  a  real  Puritan,  with  the  religion  of  his 
forefathers,  and  likewise  with  their  principles  of  gov 
ernment,  taking  the  aspect  of  Revolutionary  politics. 
At  heart,  Samuel  Adams  was  never  so  much  a  citizen 
of  the  United  States  as  he  was  a  New-Englander,  and 
a  son  of  the  old  Bay  Province.  The  following  passage 
has  much  of  the  man  in  it :  "I  heartily  congratulate 
you,"  he  writes  from  Philadelphia,  after  the  British 
have  left  Boston,  "upon  the  sudden  and  important 
change  in  our  affairs,  in  the  removal  of  the  barba 
rians  from  the  capital.  We  owe  our  grateful  acknowl 
edgments  to  Him  who  is,  as  he  is  frequently  styled  in 
Sacred  Writ,  '  The  Lord  of  Hosts.'  We  have  not  yet 
been  informed  with  certainty  what  course  the  enemy 
have  steered.  I  hope  we  shall  be  on  our  guard  against 
future  attempts.  Will  not  care  be  taken  to  fortify  the 
harbor,  and  thereby  prevent  the  entrance  of  ships-of- 
war  hereafter  ?  " 

From  Hancock,  we  have  only  the  envelope  of  a  doc 
ument  "  on  public  service,"  directed  to  "  The  Hon.  the 
Assembly,  or  Council  of  Safety  of  New  Hampshire," 
and  with  the  autograph  affixed,  that  stands  out  so 
prominently  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  As 
seen  in  the  engraving  of  that  instrument,  the  signature 
looks  precisely  what  we  should  expect  and  desire  in 
the  handwriting  of  a  princely  merchant,  whose  pen 
manship  had  been  practised  in  the  ledger  which  he  is 
represented  as  holding,  in  Copley's  brilliant  picture, 
but  to  whom  his  native  ability,  and  the  circumstances 
and  customs  of  his  country,  had  given  a  place  among 
its  rulers.  But,  on  the  coarse  and  dingy  paper  before 


A   BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  97 

us,  the  effect  is  very  much  inferior ;  the  direction,  all 
except  the  signature,  is  a  scrawl,  large  and  heavy,  but 
not  forcible ;  and  even  the  name  itself,  while  almost 
identical  in  its  strokes  with  that  of  the  Declaration, 
has  a  strangely  different  and  more  vulgar  aspect. 
Perhaps  it  is  all  right,  and  typical  of  the  truth.  If 
we  may  trust  tradition,  and  unpublished  letters,  and  a 
few  witnesses  in  point,  there  was  quite  as  much  differ 
ence  between  the  actual  man  and  his  historical  aspect, 
as  between  the  manuscript  signature  and  the  engraved 
one.  One  of  his  associates,  both  in  political  life  and 
permanent  renown,  is  said  to  have  characterized  him 
as  a  "  man  without  a  head  or  heart."  We,  of  an  after 
generation,  should  hardly  be  entitled,  on  whatever  evi 
dence,  to  assume  such  ungracious  liberty  with  a  name 
that  has  occupied  a  lofty  position  until  it  has  grown 
almost  sacred,  and  which  is  associated  with  memories 
more  sacred  than  itself,  and  has  thus  become  a  valu 
able  reality  to  our  countrymen,  by  the  aged  reverence 
that  clusters  round  about  it.  Nevertheless,  it  may  be 
no  impiety  to  regard  Hancock  not  precisely  as  a  real 
personage,  but  as  a  majestic  figure,  useful  and  neces 
sary  in  its  way,  but  producing  its  effect  far  more  by 
an  ornamental  outside  than  by  any  intrinsic  force  or 
virtue.  The  page  of  all  history  would  be  half  unpeo 
pled  if  all  such  characters  were  banished  from  it. 

From  General  Warren  we  have  a  letter  dated  Jan 
uary  14,  1775,  only  a  few  months  before  he  attested 
the  sincerity  of  his  patriotism,  in  his  own  blood,  on 
Bunker  Hill.  His  handwriting  has  many  ungraceful 
flourishes.  All  the  small  d's  spout  upward  in  para 
bolic  curves,  and  descend  at  a  considerable  distance. 
His  pen  seems  to  have  had  nothing  but  hair-lines  in 
it ;  and  the  whole  letter,  though  perfectly  legible,  has 


98  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

a  look  of  thin  and  unpleasant  irregularity.  The  sub 
ject  is  a  plan  for  securing  to  the  colonial  party  the 
services  of  Colonel  Gridley  the  engineer,  by  an  appeal 
to  his  private  interests.  Though  writing  to  General 
Palmer,  an  intimate  friend,  Warren  signs  himself, 
most  ceremoniously,  "  Your  obedient  servant."  In 
deed,  these  stately  formulas  in  winding  up  a  letter 
were  scarcely  laid  aside,  whatever  might  be  the  famili 
arity  of  intercourse  :  husband  and  wife  were  occasion 
ally,  on  paper  at  least,  the  "  obedient  servants  "  of  one 
another ;  and  not  improbably,  among  well-bred  peo 
ple,  there  was  a  corresponding  ceremonial  of  bows  and 
courtesies,  even  in  the  deepest  interior  of  domestic  life. 
With  all  the  reality  that  filled  men's  hearts,  and  which 
has  stamped  its  impress  on  so  many  of  these  letters, 
it  was  a  far  more  formal  age  than  the  present. 

It  may  be  remarked  that  Warren  was  almost  the 
only  man  eminently  distinguished  in  the  intellectual 
phase  of  the  Revolution,  previous  to  the  breaking  out 
of  the  war,  who  actually  uplifted  his  arm  to  do  battle. 
The  legislative  patriots  were  a  distinct  class  from  the 
patriots  of  the  camp,  and  never  laid  aside  the  gown 
for  the  sword.  It  was  very  different  in  the  great  civil 
war  of  England,  where  the  leading  minds  of  the  age, 
when  argument  had  done  its  office,  or  left  it  undone, 
put  on  their  steel  breast-plates  and  appeared  as  lead 
ers  in  the  field.  Educated  young  men,  members  of 
the  old  colonial  families, — gentlemen,  as  John  Adams 
terms  them,  —  seem  not  to  have  sought  employment 
in  the  Revolutionary  army,  in  such  numbers  as  might 
have  been  expected.  Respectable  as  the  officers  gen 
erally  were,  and  great  as  were  the  abilities  sometimes 
elicited,  the  intellect  and  cultivation  of  the  country 
was  inadequately  represented  in  them,  as  a  body. 


A   BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  99 

Turning  another  page,  we  find  the  frank  of  a  letter 
from  Henry  Laurens,  President  of  Congress,  —  him 
whose  destiny  it  was,  like  so  many  noble  men  of  old,  to 
pass  beneath  the  Traitor's  Gate  of  the  Tower  of  Lon- 
don?  —  him  whose  chivalrous  son  sacrificed  as  brilliant 
a  future  as  any  young  American  could  have  looked 
forward  to,  in  an  obscure  skirmish.  Likewise,  we 
have  the  address  of  a  letter  to  Messrs.  Leroy  and  Bay 
ard,  in  the  handwriting  of  Jefferson  ;  too  slender  a 
material  to  serve  as  a  talisman  for  summoning  up  the 
writer ;  a  most  unsatisfactory  fragment,  affecting  us 
like  a  glimpse  of  the  retreating  form  of  the  sage  of 
Monticello,  turning  the  distant  corner  of  a  street 
There  is  a  scrap  from  Robert  Morris,  the  financier ; 
a  letter  or  two  from  Judge  Jay  ;  and  one  from  General 
Lincoln,  written,  apparently,  on  the  gallop,  but  without 
any  of  those  characteristic  sparks  that  sometimes  fly 
out  in  a  hurry,  when  all  the  leisure  in  the  world  would 
fail  to  elicit  them.  Lincoln  was  the  type  of  a  New 
England  soldier ;  a  man  of  fair  abilities,  not  especially 
of  a  warlike  cast,  without  much  chivalry,  but  faith 
ful  and  bold,  and  carrying  a  kind  of  decency  and  re 
straint  into  the  wild  and  ruthless  business  of  arms. 

From  good  old  Baron  Steuben,  we  find  not  a  manu 
script  essay  on  the  method  of  arranging  a  battle,  but 
a  commercial  draft,  in  a  small,  neat  hand,  as  plain  as 
print,  elegant  without  flourish,  except  a  very  compli 
cated  one  on  the  signature.  On  the  whole,  the  speci 
men  is  sufficiently  characteristic,  as  well  of  the  Baron's 
soldierlike  and  German  simplicity,  as  of  the  polish  of 
the  Great  Frederick's  aid -de -camp,  a  man  of  courts 
and  of  the  world.  How  singular  and  picturesque  an 
effect  is  produced,  in  the  array  of  our  Revolutionary 
army,  by  the  intermingling  of  these  titled  personages 


100  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

from  the  Continent  of  Europe,  with  feudal  associations 
clinging  about  them,  —  Steuben,  De  Kalb,  Pulaski, 
Lafayette  !  —  the  German  veteran,  who  had  written 
from  one  famous  battle-field  to  another  for  thirty 
years;  and  the  young  French  noble,  who  had  come 
hither,  though  yet  unconscious  of  his  high  office,  to 
light  the  torch  that  should  set  fire  to  the  antiquated 
trumpery  of  his  native  institutions.  Among  these  au 
tographs,  there  is  one  from  Lafayette,  written  long 
after  our  Revolution,  but  while  that  of  his  own  coun 
try  was  in  full  progress.  The  note  is  merely  as  fol 
lows  :  "  Enclosed  you  will  find,  my  dear  Sir,  two 
tickets  for  the  sittings  of  this  day.  One  part  of  the 
debate  will  be  on  the  Honors  of  the  Pantheon,  agree 
ably  to  what  has  been  decreed  by  the  Constitutional 
Assembly." 

It  is  a  pleasant  and  comfortable  thought,  that  we 
have  no  such  classic  folly  as  is  here  indicated,  to  lay 
to  the  charge  of  our  Revolutionary  fathers.  Both  in 
their  acts,  and  in  the  drapery  of  those  acts,  they  were 
true  to  their  several  and  simple  selves,  and  thus  left 
nothing  behind  them  for  a  fastidious  taste  to  sneer  at. 
But  it  must  be  considered  that  our  Revolution  did  not, 
like  that  of  France,  go  so  deep  as  to  disturb  the  com 
mon-sense  of  the  country. 

General  Schuyler  writes  a  letter,  under  date  of  Feb 
ruary  22,  1780,  relating  not  to  military  affairs,  from 
which  the  prejudices  of  his  countrymen  had  almost 
disconnected  him,  but  to  the  Salt  Springs  of  Onon- 
daga.  The  expression  is  peculiarly  direct,  and  the 
hand  that  of  a  man  of  business,  free  and  flowing.  The 
uncertainty,  the  vague,  hearsay  evidence  respecting 
these  springs,  then  gushing  into  dim  daylight  beneath 
the  shadow  of  a  remote  wilderness,  is  such  as  might 


A   BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  101 

now  be  quoted  in  reference  to  the  quality  of  the  water 
that  supplies  the  fountains  of  the  Nile.  The  following 
sentence  shows  us  an  Indian  woman  and  her  son,  prac 
tising  their  simple  process  in  the  manufacture  of  salt, 
at  a  fire  of  wind-strewn  boughs,  the  flame  of  which 
gleams  duskily  through  the  arches  of  the  forest  : 
"  From  a  variety  of  information,  I  find  the  smallest 
quantity  made  by  a  squaw,  with  the  assistance  of  one 
boy,  with  a  kettle  of  about  ten  gallons'  capacity,  is 
half  a  bushel  per  day ;  the  greatest,  with  the  same  ket 
tle,  about  two  bushels."  It  is  particularly  interesting 
to  find  out  anything  as  to  the  embryo,  yet  stationary 
arts  of  life  among  the  red  people,  their  manufactures, 
their  agriculture,  their  domestic  labors.  It  is  partly 
the  lack  of  this  knowledge  —  the  possession  of  which 
would  establish  a  ground  of  sympathy  on  the  part  of 
civilized  "men  —  that  makes  the  Indian  race  so  shadow- 
like  and  unreal  to  our  conception. 

We  could  not  select  a  greater  contrast  to  the  up 
right  and  unselfish  patriot  whom  we  have  just  spoken 
of,  than  the  traitor  Arnold,  from  whom  there  is  a 
brief  note,  dated,  "  Crown  Point,  January  19,  1775," 
addressed  to  an  officer  under  his  command.  The  three 
lines  of  which  it  consists  can  prove  bad  spelling,  erro 
neous  grammar,  and  misplaced  and  superfluous  punc 
tuation  ;  but,  with  all  this  complication  of  iniquity, 
the  ruffian  General  contrives  to  express  his  meaning 
as  briefly  and  clearly  as  if  the  rules  of  correct  compo 
sition  had  been  ever  so  scrupulously  observed.  This 
autograph,  impressed  with  the  foulest  name  in  our  his 
tory,  has  somewhat  of  the  interest  that  would  attach 
to  a  document  on  which  a  fiend-devoted  wretch  had 
signed  away  his  salvation.  But  there  was  not  sub 
stance  enough  in  the  man  —  a  mere  cross  between  the 


102  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

bull-dog  and  the  fox  —  to  justify  much  feeling  of  any 
sort  about  him  personally.  The  interest,  such  as  it 
is,  attaches  but  little  to  the  man,  and  far  more  to  the 
circumstances  amid  which  he  acted,  rendering  the  vil- 
lany  almost  sublime,  which,  exercised  in  petty  affairs, 
would  only  have  been  vulgar. 

We  turn  another  leaf,  and  find  a  memorial  of  Ham 
ilton.  It  is  but  a  letter  of  introduction,  addressed  to 
Governor  Jay  in  favor  of  Mr.  Davies,  of  Kentucky ; 
but  it  gives  an  impression  of  high  breeding  and  cour 
tesy,  as  little  to  be  mistaken  as  if  we  could  see  the 
writer's  manner  and  hear  his  cultivated  accents,  while 
personally  making  one  gentleman  known  to  another. 
There  is  likewise  a  rare  vigor  of  expression  and  preg 
nancy  of  meaning,  such  as  only  a  man  of  habitual  en 
ergy  of  thought  could  have  conveyed  into  so  common 
place  a  thing  as  an  introductory  letter.  This  auto 
graph  is  a  graceful  one,  with  an  easy  and  picturesque 
flourish  beneath  the  signature,  symbolical  of  a  cour 
teous  bow  at  the  conclusion  of  the  social  ceremony  so 
admirably  performed.  Hamilton  might  well  be  the 
leader  and  idol  of  the  Federalists  ;  for  he  was  preemi 
nent  in  all  the  high  qualities  that  characterized  the 
great  men  of  that  party,  and  which  should  make  even 
a  Democrat  feel  proud  that  his  country  had  produced 
such  a  noble  old  band  of  aristocrats ;  and  he  shared  all 
the  distrust  of  the  people,  which  so  inevitably  and  so 
righteously  brought  about  their  ruin.  With  his  auto 
graph  we  associate  that  of  another  Federalist,  his 
friend  in  life  ;  a  man  far  narrower  than  Hamilton,  but 
endowed  with  a  native  vigor,  that  caused  many  parti 
sans  to  grapple  to  him  for  support ;  upright,  sternly  in 
flexible,  and  of  a  simplicity  of  manner  that  might  have 
befitted  the  sturdiest  republican  among  us.  In  our 


A   BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  103 

boyhood  we  used  to  see  a  thin,  severe  figure  of  an  an 
cient  man,  time-worn,  but  apparently  indestructible, 
moving  with  a  step  of  vigorous  decay  along  the  street, 
and  knew  him  as  "  Old  Tim  Pickering." 

Side  by  side,  too,  with  the  autograph  of  Hamilton, 
we  would  place  one  from  the  hand  that  shed  his  blood. 
It  is  a  few  lines  of  Aaron  Burr,  written  in  1823  ; 
when  all  his  ambitious  schemes,  whatever  they  once 
were,  had  been  so  long  shattered  that  even  the  frag 
ments  had  crumbled  away,  leaving  him  to  exert  his 
withered  energies  on  petty  law  cases,  to  one  of  which 
the  present  note  refers.  The  hand  is  a  little  tremulous 
with  age,  yet  small  and  fastidiously  elegant,  as  became 
a  man  who  was  in  the  habit  of  writing  billet-doux  on 
scented  note-paper,  as  well  as  documents  of  war  and 
state.  This  is  to  us  a  deeply  interesting  autograph. 
Remembering  what  has  been  said  of  the  power  of 
Burr's  personal  influence,  his  art  to  tempt  men,  his 
might  to  subdue  them,  and  the  fascination  that  ena 
bled  him,  though  cold  at  heart,  to  win  the  love  of 
woman,  we  gaze  at  this  production  of  his  pen  as  into 
his  own  inscrutable  eyes,  seeking  for  the  mystery  of 
his  nature.  How  singular  that  a  character  imperfect, 
ruined,  blasted,  as  this  man's  was,  excites  a  stronger 
interest  than  if  it  had  reached  the  highest  earthly  per 
fection  of  which  its  original  elements  would  admit! 
It  is  by  the  diabolical  part  of  Burr's  character  that  he 
produces  his  effect  on  the  imagination.  Had  he  been 
a  better  man,  we  doubt,  after  all,  whether  the  present 
age  would  not  already  have  suffered  him  to  wax  dusty, 
and  fade  out  of  sight,  among  the  mere  respectable  me 
diocrities  of  his  own  epoch.  But,  certainly,  he  was  a 
strange,  wild  off-shoot  to  have  sprung  from  the  united 
stock  of  those  two  singular  Christians,  President  Burr 
of  Princeton  College,  and  Jonathan  Edwards  ! 


104  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

Omitting  many,  we  have  come  almost  to  the  end  of 
these  memorials  of  historical  men.  We  observe  one 
other  autograph  of  a  distinguished  soldier  of  the  Kev- 
olution,  Henry  Knox,  but  written  in  1791,  when  he 
was  Secretary  of  War.  In  its  physical  aspect,  it  is 
well  worthy  to  be  a  soldier's  letter.  The  hand  is  large, 
round,  and  legible  at  a  glance  ;  the  lines  far  apart, 
and  accurately  equidistant ;  and  the  whole  affair  looks 
not  unlike  a  company  of  regular  troops  in  marching 
order.  The  signature  has  a  point-like  firmness  and 
simplicity.  It  is  a  curious  observation,  sustained  by 
these  autographs,  though  we  know  not  how  generally 
correct,  that  Southern  gentlemen  are  more  addicted  to 
a  flourish  of  the  pen  beneath  their  names,  than  those 
of  the  North. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  men  of  a  later  generation, 
whose  active  life  reaches  almost  within  the  verge  of 
present  affairs  ;  people  of  dignity,  no  doubt,  but  whose 
characters  have  not  acquired,  either  from  time  or  cir 
cumstances,  the  interest  that  can  make  their  auto 
graphs  valuable  to  any  but  the  collector.  Those  whom 
we  have  hitherto  noticed  were  the  men  of  an  heroic 
age.  They  are  departed,  and  now  so  utterly  departed, 
as  not  even  to  touch  upon  the  passing  generation 
through  the  medium  of  persons  still  in  life,  who  can 
claim  to  have  known  them  familiarly.  Their  letters, 
therefore,  come  to  us  like  material  things  out  of  the 
hands  of  mighty  shadows,  long  historical,  and  tradi 
tionary,  and  fit  companions  for  the  sages  and  warriors 
of  a  thousand  years  ago.  In  spite  of  the  proverb,  it  is 
not  in  a  single  day,  or  in  a  very  few  years,  that  a  man 
can  be  reckoned  "  as  dead  as  Julius  Ca3sar."  We  feel 
little  interest  in  scraps  from  the  pens  of  old  gentle 
men,  ambasadors,  governors,  senators,  heads  of  de- 


A   BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  105 

partments,  even  presidents  though  they  were,  who 
lived  lives  of  praiseworthy  respectability,  and  whose 
powdered  heads  and  black  knee-breeches  have  but  just 
vanished  out  of  the  drawing-room.  Still  less  do  we 
value  the  blotted  paper  of  those  whose  reputations  are 
dusty,  not  with  oblivious  time,  but  with  present  polit 
ical  turmoil  and  newspaper  vogue.  Really  great  men, 
however,  seem,  as  to  their  effect  on  the  imagination, 
to  take  their  place  amongst  past  worthies,  even  while 
walking  in  the  very  sunshine  that  illuminates  the  au 
tumnal  day  in  which  we  write.  We  look,  not  without 
curiosity,  at  the  small,  neat  hand  of  Henry  Clay,  who, 
as  he  remarks  with  his  habitual  deference  to  the  wishes 
of  the  fair,  responds  to  a  young  lady's  request  for  his 
seal ;  and  we  dwell  longer  over  the  torn-off  conclusion 
of  a  note  from  Mr.  Calhoun,  whose  words  are  strangely 
dashed  off  without  letters,  and  whose  name,  were  it 
less  illustrious,  would  be  unrecognizable  in  his  own 
autograph.  But  of  all  hands  that  can  still  grasp  a 
pen,  we  know  not  the  one,  belonging  to  a  soldier  or  a 
statesman,  which  could  interest  us  more  than  the  hand 
that  wrote  the  following :  "  Sir,  your  note  of  the  6th 
inst.  is  received.  I  hasten  to  answer  that  there  was 
no  man  4  in  the  station  of  colonel,  by  the  name  of  J. 
T.  Smith,'  under  my  command,  at  the  battle  of  New 
Orleans ;  and  am,  respectfully, 

"Yours,  ANDKEW  JACKSON. 

Oct.  19th,  1833." 

The  old  general,  we  suspect,  has  been  insnared  by 
a  pardonable  little  stratagem  on  the  part  of  the  au 
tograph  collector.  The  battle  of  New  Orleans  would 
hardly  have  been  won,  without  better  aid  than  this 
problematical  Colonel  J.  T.  Smith. 


106  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

Intermixed  with  and  appended  to  these  historical 
autographs,  there  are  a  few  literary  ones.  Timothy 
D wight  —  the  "  old  Timotheus  "  who  sang  the  Con 
quest  of  Canaan,  instead  of  choosing  a  more  popular 
subject,  in  the  British  Conquest  of  Canada  —  is  of 
eldest  date.  Colonel  Trumbull,  whose  hand,  at  vari 
ous  epochs  of  his  life,  was  familiar  with  sword,  pen, 
and  pencil,  contributes  two  letters,  which  lack  the 
picturesqueness  of  execution  that  should  distinguish 
the  chirography  of  an  artist.  The  value  of  Trumbull' s 
pictures  is  of  the  same  nature  with  that  of  daguerreo 
types,  depending  not  upon  the  ideal  but  the  actual. 
The  beautiful  signature  of  Washington  Irving  appears 
as  the  indorsement  of  a  draft,  dated  in  1814,  when,  if 
we  may  take  this  document  as  evidence,  his  individu 
ality  seems  to  have  been  merged  into  the  firm  of  "  P. 
E.  Irving  &  Co."  Never  was  anything  less  mercan 
tile  than  this  autograph,  though  as  legible  as  the  writ 
ing  of  a  bank-clerk.  Without  apparently  aiming  at 
artistic  beauty,  it  has  all  the  "  Sketch  Book  "  in  it. 
We  find  the  signature  and  seal  of  Pierpont,  the  latter 
stamped  with  the  poet's  almost  living  countenance. 
What  a  pleasant  device  for  a  seal  is  one's  own  face, 
which  he  may  thus  multiply  at  pleasure,  and  send 
letters  to  his  friends,  —  the  Head  without,  and  the 
Heart  within !  There  are  a  few  lines  in  the  school 
girl  hand  of  Margaret  Davidson,  at  nine  years  old ; 
and  a  scrap  of  a  letter  from  Washington  Allston,  a 
gentle  and  delicate  autograph,  in  which  we  catch  a 
glimpse  of  thanks  to  his  correspondent  for  the  loan 
of  a  volume  of  poetry.  Nothing  remains,  save  a  let 
ter  from  Noah  Webster,  whose  early  toils  were  mani 
fested  in  a  spelling-book,  and  those  of  his  later  age 
in  a  ponderous  dictionary.  Under  date  of  February 


A   BOOK  OF  AUTOGRAPHS.  107 

10,  1843,  he  writes  in  a  sturdy,  awkward  hand,  very 
fit  for  a  lexicographer,  an  epistle  of  old  man's  remi 
niscences,  from  which  we  extract  the  following  anec 
dote  of  Washington,  presenting  the  patriot  in  a  fes 
tive  light :  — 

"  When  I  was  travelling  to  the  South,  in  the  year 
1785,  I  called  on  General  Washington  at  Mount  Yer- 
non.  At  dinner,  the  last  course  of  dishes  was  a  species 
of  pancakes,  which  were  handed  round  to  each  guest, 
accompanied  with  a  bowl  of  sugar  and  another  of  mo 
lasses  for  seasoning  them,  that  each  guest  might  suit 
himself.  When  the  dish  came  to  me,  I  pushed  by  me 
the  bowl  of  molasses,  observing  to  the  gentlemen  pres 
ent,  that  I  had  enough  of  that  in  my  own  country. 
The  General  burst  out  with  a  loud  laugh,  a  thing  very 
unusual  with  him.  '  Ah,'  said  he,  '  there  is  nothing  in 
that  story  about  your  eating  molasses  in  New  Eng 
land.'  There  was  a  gentleman  from  Maryland  at  the 
table ;  and  the  General  immediately  told  a  story, 
stating  that,  during  the  Revolution,  a  hogshead  of 
molasses  was  stove  in,  in  West  Chester,  by  the  over 
setting  of  a  wagon  ;  and  a  body  of  Maryland  troops 
being  near,  the  soldiers  ran  hastily,  and  saved  all 
they  could  by  filling  their  hats  or  caps  with  molasses." 

There  are  said  to  be  temperaments  endowed  with 
sympathies  so  exquisite,  that,  by  merely  handling  an 
autograph,  they  can  detect  the  writer's  character  with 
unerring  accuracy,  and  read  his  inmost  heart  as  easily 
as  a  less-gifted  eye  would  peruse  the  written  page. 
Our  faith  in  this  power,  be  it  a  spiritual  one,  or  only 
a  refinement  of  the  physical  nature,  is  not  unlimited, 
in  spite  of  evidence.  God  has  imparted  to  the  human 
soul  a  marvellous  strength  in  guarding  its  secrets,  and 
he  keeps  at  least  the  deepest  and  most  inward  record 


108  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

for  his  own  perusal.  But  if  there  be  such  sympathies 
as  we  have  alluded  to,  in  how  many  instances  would 
History  be  put  to  the  blush  by  a  volume  of  autograph 
letters,  like  this  which  we  now  close  ! 


AN  OLD  WOMAN'S   TALE. 

IN  the  house  where  I  was  born,  there  used  to  be  an 
old  woman  crouching  all  day  long  over  the  kitchen  fire, 
with  her  elbows  on  her  knees  and  her  feet  in  the  ashes. 
Once  in  a  while  she  took  a  turn  at  the  spit,  and  she 
never  lacked  a  coarse  gray  stocking  in  her  lap,  the  foot 
about  half  finished ;  it  tapered  away  with  her  own 
waning  life,  and  she  knit  the  toe-stitch  on  the  day  of 
her  death.  She  made  it  her  serious  business  and  sole 
amusement  to  tell  me  stories  at  any  time  from  morning 
till  night,  in  a  mumbling,  toothless  voice,  as  I  sat  on  a 
log  of  wood,  grasping  her  check-apron  in  both  my 
hands.  Her  personal  memory  included  the  better  part 
of  a  hundred  years,  and  she  had  strangely  jumbled  her 
own  experience  and  observation  with  those  of  many  old 
people  who  died  in  her  young  days ;  so  that  she  might 
have  been  taken  for  a  contemporary  of  Queen  Eliza 
beth,  or  of  John  Rogers  in  the  Primer.  There  are  a 
thousand  of  her  traditions  lurking  in  the  corners  and 
by -places  of  my  mind,  some  more  marvellous  than 
what  is  to  follow,  some  less  so,  and  a  few  not  marvel 
lous  in  the  least,  all  of  which  I  should  like  to  repeat, 
if  I  were  as  happy  as  she  in  having  a  listener.  But  I 
am  humble  enough  to  own,  that  I  do  not  deserve  a 
listener  half  so  well  as  that  old  toothless  woman,  whose 
narratives  possessed  an  excellence  attributable  neither 
to  herself,  nor  to  any  single  individual.  Her  ground- 
plots,  seldom  within  the  widest  scope  of  probability, 
were  filled  up  with  homely  and  natural  incidents,  the 


110  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

gradual  accretions  of  a  long  course  of  years,  and  fic 
tion  hid  its  grotesque  extravagance  in  this  garb  of 
truth,  like  the  Devil  (an  appropriate  simile,  for  the  old 
woman  supplies  it)  disguising  himself,  cloven-foot  and 
all,  in  mortal  attire.     These  tales  generally  referred 
to  her  birthplace,  a  village  in  the  valley  of  the  Con 
necticut,  the  aspect  of  which  she  impressed  with  great 
vividness  on  my  fancy.     The  houses  in  that  tract  of 
country,  long  a  wild  and  dangerous  frontier,  were  ren 
dered  defensible  by  a  strength  of  architecture  that  has 
preserved  many  of  them  till  our  own  times,  and  I  can 
not  describe  the  sort  of  pleasure  with  which,  two  sum 
mers  since,  I  rode  through  the  little  town  in  question, 
while  one  object  after  another  rose  familiarly  to  my 
eye,  like  successive  portions  of  a  dream  becoming  real 
ized.     Among  other  things  equally  probable,  she  was 
wont  to  assert  that  all  the  inhabitants  of  this  village 
(at  certain  intervals,  but  whether  of  twenty -five  or 
fifty  years,  or  a  whole  century,  remained  a  disputable 
point)  were  subject  to  a  simultaneous  slumber,  contin 
uing  one  hour's  space.    When  that  mysterious  time  ar 
rived,  the  parson  snored  over  his  half-written  sermon, 
though  it  were  Saturday  night  and  no  provision  made 
for  the  morrow,  — -  the  mother's  eyelids  closed  as  she 
bent  over  her  infant,  and  no  childish  cry  awakened,  — 
the  watcher  at  the  bed  of  mortal  sickness  slumbered 
upon  the  death  -  pillow,  —  and  the  dying  man  antici 
pated  his  sleep  of  ages  by  one  as  deep  and  dreamless. 
To  speak  emphatically,  there  was  a  soporific  influence 
throughout  the  village,  stronger  than  if  every  mother's 
son  and  daughter  were  reading  a  dull  story  ;  notwith 
standing  which  the  old  woman  professed  to  hold  the 
substance  of  the  ensuing  account  from  one  of  those 
principally  concerned  in  it. 


AN  OLD    WOMAN'S   TALE.  Ill 

One  moonlight  summer  evening,  a  young  man  and 
a  girl  sat  down  together  in  the  open  air.  They  were 
distant  relatives,  sprung  from  a  stock  once  wealthy, 
but  of  late  years  so  poverty  -  stricken,  that  David  had 
not  a  penny  to  pay  the  marriage  fee,  if  Esther  should 
consent  to  wed.  The  seat  they  had  chosen  was  in  an 
open  grove  of  elm  and  walnut-trees,  at  a  right  angle 
of  the  road ;  a  spring  of  diamond  water  just  bubbled 
into  the  moonlight  beside  them,  and  then  whimpered 
away  through  the  bushes  and  long  grass,  in  search  of 
a  neighboring  mill-stream.  The  nearest  house  (situate 
within  twenty  yards  of  them,  and  the  residence  of  their 
great-grandfather  in  his  lifetime)  was  a  venerable  old 
edifice,  crowned  with  many  high  and  narrow  peaks, 
all  overrun  by  innumerable  creeping  plants,  which 
hung  curling  about  the  roof  like  a  nice  young  wig  on 
an  elderly  gentleman's  head.  Opposite  to  this  estab 
lishment  was  a  tavern,  with  a  well  and  horse  -  trough 
before  it,  and  a  low  green  bank  running  along  the  left 
side  of  the  door.  Thence,  the  road  went  onward, 
curving  scarce  perceptibly,  through  the  village,  di 
vided  in  the  midst  by  a  narrow  lane  of  verdure,  and 
bounded  on  each  side  by  a  grassy  strip  of  twice  its 
own  breadth.  The  houses  had  generally  an  odd  look. 
Here,  the  moonlight  tried  to  get  a  glimpse  of  one,  a 
rough  old  heap  of  ponderous  timber,  which,  ashamed 
of  its  dilapidated  aspect,  was  hiding  behind  a  great 
thick  tree ;  the  lower  story  of  the  next  had  sunk  al 
most  under  ground,  as  if  the  poor  little  house  were 
a-weary  of  the  world,  and  retiring  into  the  seclusion 
of  its  own  cellar  ;  farther  on  stood  one  of  the  few  re 
cent  structures,  thrusting  its  painted  face  conspicu 
ously  into  the  street,  with  an  evident  idea  that  it  was 
the  fairest  thing  there.  About  midway  in  the  village 


112  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

was  a  grist  -  mill,  partly  concealed  by  the  descent  of 
the  ground  towards  the  stream  which  turned  its  wheel. 
At  the  southern  extremity,  just  so  far  distant  that  the 
window-panes  dazzled  into  each  other,  rose  the  meet 
ing-house,  a  dingy  old  barnlike  building,  with  an  enor 
mously  disproportioned  steeple  sticking  up  straight 
into  heaven,  as  high  as  the  Tower  of  Babel,  and  the 
cause  of  nearly  as  much  confusion  in  its  day.  This 
steeple,  it  must  be  understood,  was  an  afterthought, 
and  its  addition  to  the  main  edifice,  when  the  latter 
had  already  begun  to  decay,  had  excited  a  vehement 
quarrel,  and  almost  a  schism  in  the  church,  some  fifty 
years  before.  Here  the  road  wound  down  a  hill,  and 
was  seen  no  more,  the  remotest  object  in  view  being 
the  graveyard  gate,  beyond  the  meeting-house.  The 
youthful  pair  sat  hand  in  hand  beneath  the  trees,  and 
for  several  moments  they  had  not  spoken,  because  the 
breeze  was  hushed,  the  brook  scarce  tinkled,  the  leaves 
had  ceased  their  rustling,  and  everything  lay  motion 
less  and  silent  as  if  Nature  were  composing  herself  to 
slumber. 

"  What  a  beautiful  night  it  is,  Esther !  "  remarked 
David,  somewhat  drowsily. 

"Very  beautiful,"  answered  the  girl,  in  the  same 
tone. 

"  But  how  still !  "  continued  David. 

"  Ah,  too  still !  "  said  Esther,  with  a  faint  shudder, 
like  a  modest  leaf  when  the  wind  kisses  it. 

Perhaps  they  fell  asleep  together,  and,  united  as 
their  spirits  were  by  close  and  tender  sympathies,  the 
same  strange  dream  might  have  wrapped  them  in  its 
shadowy  arms.  But  they  conceived,  at  the  time,  that 
they  still  remained  wakeful  by  the  spring  of  bubbling 
water,  looking  down  through  the  village,  and  all  along 


AN  OLD   WOMAN' S   TALE.  113 

the  moon-lighted  road,  and  at  the  queer  old  houses, 
and  at  the  trees,  which  thrust  their  great  twisted 
branches  almost  into  the  windows.  There  was  only  a 
sort  of  mistiness  over  their  minds  like  the  smoky  air  of 
an  early  autumn  night.  At  length,  without  any  vivid 
astonishment,  they  became  conscious  that  a  great  many 
people  were  either  entering  the  village  or  already  in 
the  street,  but  whether  they  came  from  the  meeting 
house,  or  from  a  little  beyond  it,  or  where  the  devil 
they  came  from,  was  more  than  could  be  determined. 
Certainly  a  crowd  of  people  seemed  to  be  there,  men, 
women,  and  children,  all  of  whom  were  yawning  and 
rubbing  their  eyes,  stretching  their  limbs,  and  stagger 
ing  from  side  to  side  of  the  road,  as  if  but  partially 
awakened  from  a  sound  slumber.  Sometimes  they 
stood  stock-still,  with  their  hands  over  their  brows  to 
shade  their  sight  from  the  moonbeams.  As  they  drew 
near,  most  of  their  countenances  appeared  familiar  to 
Esther  and  David,  possessing  the  peculiar  features  of 
families  in  the  village,  and  that  general  air  and  aspect 
by  which  a  person  would  recognize  his  own  townsmen 
in  the  remotest  ends  of  the  earth.  But  though  the 
whole  multitude  might  have  been  taken,  in  the  mass, 
for  neighbors  and  acquaintances,  there  was  not  a  single 
individual  whose  exact  likeness  they  had  ever  before 
seen.  It  was  a  noticeable  circumstance,  also,  that  the 
newest  fashioned  garment  on  the  backs  of  these  people 
might  have  been  worn  by  the  great-grandparents  of 
the  existing  generation.  There  was  one  figure  behind 
all  the  rest,  and  not  yet  near  enough  to  be  perfectly 
distinguished. 

"Where  on  earth,  David,  do  all  these  odd  people 
come  from  ? "  said  Esther,  with  a  lazy  inclination  to 
laugh. 


114  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

"Nowhere  on  earth,  Esther,"  replied  David,  un 
knowing  why  he  said  so. 

As  they  spoke,  the  strangers  showed  some  symptoms 
of  disquietude,  and  looked  towards  the  fountain  for  an 
instant,  but  immediately  appeared  to  assume  their  own 
trains  of  thought  and  previous  purposes.  They  now 
separated  to  different  parts  of  the  village,with  a  readi 
ness  that  implied  intimate  local  knowledge,  and  it  may 
be  worthy  of  remark,  that,  though  they  were  evidently 
loquacious  among  themselves,  neither  their  footsteps 
nor  their  voices  reached  the  ears  of  the  beholders. 
Wherever  there  was  a  venerable  old  house,  of  fifty 
years'  standing  and  upwards,  surrounded  by  its  elm  or 
walnut-trees,  with  its  dark  and  weather-beaten  barn, 
its  well,  its  orchard  and  stone-walls,  all  ancient  and  all 
in  good  repair  around  it,  there  a  little  group  of  these 
people  assembled.  Such  parties  were  mostly  composed 
of  an  aged  man  and  woman,  with  the  younger  mem 
bers  of  a  family ;  their  faces  were  full  of  joy,  so  deep 
that  it  assumed  the  shade  of  melancholy ;  they  pointed 
to  each  other  the  minutest  objects  about  the  home 
steads,  things  in  their  hearts,  and  were  now  compar 
ing  them  with  the  originals.  But  where  hollow  places 
by  the  wayside,  grass -grown,  and  uneven,  with  un 
sightly  chimneys  rising  ruinous  in  the  midst,  gave 
indications  of  a  fallen  dwelling  and  of  hearths  long 
cold,  there  did  a  few  of  the  strangers  sit  them  down 
on  the  mouldering  beams,  and  on  the  yellow  moss  that 
had  overspread  the  door-stone.  The  men  folded  their 
arms,  sad  and  speechless ;  the  women  wrung  their  hands 
with  a  more  vivid  expression  of  grief ;  and  the  little 
children  tottered  to  their  knees,  shrinking  away  from 
the  open  grave  of  domestic  love.  And  wherever  a  re 
cent  edifice  reared  its  white  and  flashy  front  on  the 


AN  OLD    WOMAN'S   TALE.  115 

foundation  of  an  old  one,  there  a  gray-haired  man 
might  be  seen  to  shake  his  staff  in  anger  at  it,  while 
his  aged  dame  and  their  offspring  appeared  to  join 
in  their  maledictions,  forming  a  fearful  picture  in  the 
ghostly  moonlight.  While  these  scenes  were  passing, 
the  one  figure  in  the  rear  of  all  the  rest  was  descend 
ing  the  hollow  towards  the  mill,  and  the  eyes  of  David 
and  Esther  were  drawn  thence  to  a  pair  with  whom 
they  could  fully  sympathize.  It  was  a  youth  in  a 
sailor's  dress  and  a  pale  slender  maiden,  who  met  each 
other  with  a  sweet  embrace  in  the  middle  of  the  street. 

"  How  long  it  must  be  since  they  parted,"  observed 
David. 

"Fifty  years  at  least,"  said  Esther. 

They  continued  to  gaze  with  wondering  calmness 
and  quiet  interest,  as  the  dream  (if  such  it  were)  un 
rolled  its  quaint  and  motley  semblance  before  them, 
and  their  notice  was  now  attracted  by  several  little 
knots  of  people  apparently  engaged  in  conversation. 
Of  these  one  of  the  earliest  collected  and  most  charac 
teristic  was  near  the  tavern,  the  persons  who  composed 
it  being  seated  on  the  low  green  bank  along  the  left 
side  of  the  door.  A  conspicuous  figure  here  was  a  fine 
corpulent  old  fellow  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and  flame-col 
ored  breeches,  and  with  a  stained  white  apron  over  his 
paunch,  beneath  which  he  held  his  hands,  and  where 
with  at  times  he  wiped  his  ruddy  face.  The  stately 
decrepitude  of  one  of  his  companions,  the  scar  of  an 
Indian  tomahawk  on  his  crown,  and  especially  his  worn 
buff-coat,  were  appropriate  marks  of  a  veteran  belong 
ing  to  an  old  Provincial  garrison,  now  deaf  to  the  roll- 
call.  Another  showed  his  rough  face  under  a  tarry 
hat  and  wore  a  pair  of  wide  trousers,  like  an  ancient 
mariner  who  had  tossed  away  his  youth  upon  the  sea, 


116  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

and  was  returned,  hoary  and  weather-beaten,  to  his 
inland  home.  There  was  also  a  thin  young  man,  care 
lessly  dressed,  who  ever  and  anon  cast  a  sad  look  to 
wards  the  pale  maiden  above  mentioned.  With  these 
there  sat  a  hunter,  and  one  or  two  others,  and  they 
were  soon  joined  by  a  miller,  who  came  upward  from 
the  dusty  mill,  his  coat  as  white  as  if  besprinkled  with 
powdered  starlight.  All  these  (by  the  aid  of  jests, 
which  might  indeed  be  old,  but  had  not  been  recently 
repeated)  waxed  very  merry,  and  it  was  rather  strange, 
that  just  as  their  sides  shook  with  the  heartiest  laugh 
ter,  they  appeared  greatly  like  a  group  of  shadows 
flickering  in  the  moonshine.  Four  personages,  very 
different  from  these,  stood  in  front  of  the  large  house 
with  its  periwig  of  creeping  plants.  One  was  a  little 
elderly  figure,  distinguished  by  the  gold  on  his  three- 
cornered  hat  and  sky-blue  coat,  and  by  the  seal  of 
arms  annexed  to  his  great  gold  watch-chain ;  his  air  and 
aspect  befitted  a  Justice  of  Peace  and  County  Major, 
and  all  earth's  pride  and  pomposity  were  squeezed 
into  this  small  gentleman  of  five  feet  high.  The  next 
in  importance  was  a  grave  person  of  sixty  or  seventy 
years,  whose  black  suit  and  band  sufficiently  indicated 
his  character,  and  the  polished  baldness  of  whose  head 
was  worthy  of  a  famous  preacher  in  the  village,  half  a 
century  before,  who  had  made  wigs  a  subject  of  pul 
pit  denunciation.  The  two  other  figures,  both  clad  in 
dark  gray,  showed  the  sobriety  of  Deacons ;  one  was 
ridiculously  tall  and  thin,  like  a  man  of  ordinary  bulk 
infinitely  produced,  as  the  mathematicians  say ;  while 
the  brevity  and  thickness  of  his  colleague  seemed  a 
compression  of  the  same  man.  These  four  talked  with 
great  earnestness,  and  their  gestures  intimated  that 
they  had  revived  the  ancient  dispute  about  the  meet- 


AN  OLD    WOMAN'S   TALE.  117 

ing-house  steeple.  The  grave  person  in  black  spoke 
with  composed  solemnity,  as  if  he  were  addressing  a 
Synod ;  the  short  deacon  grunted  out  occasional  sen 
tences,  as  brief  as  himself ;  his  tall  brother  drew  the 
long  thread  of  his  argument  through  the  whole  dis 
cussion,  and  (reasoning  from  analogy)  his  voice  must 
indubitably  have  been  small  and  squeaking.  But  the 
little  old  man  in  gold-lace  was  evidently  scorched  by 
his  own  red-hot  eloquence;  he  bounced  from  one  to 
another,  shook  his  cane  at  the  steeple,  at  the  two  dea 
cons,  and  almost  in  the  parson's  face,  stamping  with 
his  foot  fiercely  enough  to  break  a  hole  through  the 
very  earth;  though,  indeed,  it  could  not  exactly  be 
said  that  the  green  grass  bent  beneath  him.  The  fig 
ure,  noticed  as  coming  behind  all  the  rest,  had  now 
surmounted  the  ascent  from  the  mill,  and  proved  to 
be  an  elderly  lady  with  something  in  her  hand. 

"  Why  does  she  walk  so  slow  ?  "  asked  David. 

"  Don't  you  see  she  is  lame  ?  "  said  Esther. 

This  gentlewoman,  whose  infirmity  had  kept  her  so 
far  in  the  rear  of  the  crowd,  now  came  hobbling  on, 
glided  unobserved  by  the  polemic  group,  and  paused 
on  the  left  brink  of  the  fountain,  within  a  few  feet  of 
the  two  spectators.  She  was  a  magnificent  old  dame, 
as  ever  mortal  eye  beheld.  Her  spangled  shoes  and 
gold^  clocked  stockings  shone  gloriously  within  the 
spacious  circle  of  a  red  hoop-petticoat,  which  swelled 
to  the  very  point  of  explosion,  and  was  bedecked  all 
over  with  embroidery  a  little  tarnished.  Above  the 
petticoat,  and  parting  in  front  so  as  to  display  it  to 
the  best  advantage,  was  a  figured  blue  damask  gown. 
A  wide  and  stiff  ruff  encircled  her  neck,  a  cap  of  the 
finest  muslin,  though  rather  dingy,  covered  her  head, 
and  her  nose  was  bestridden  by  a  pair  of  gold-bowed 


118  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

spectacles  with  enormous  glasses.  But  the  old  lady's 
face  was  pinched,  sharp,  and  sallow,  wearing  a  nig 
gardly  and  avaricious  expression,  and  forming  an  odd 
contrast  to  the  splendor  of  her  attire,  as  did  likewise 
the  implement  which  she  held  in  her  hand.  It  was  a 
sort  of  iron  shovel  (by  housewives  termed  a  "slice"), 
such  as  is  used  in  clearing  the  oven,  and  with  this, 
selecting  a  spot  between  a  walnut-tree  and  the  foun 
tain,  the  good  dame  made  an  earnest  attempt  to  dig. 
The  tender  sods,  however,  possessed  a  strange  impen 
etrability.  They  resisted  her  efforts  like  a  quarry  of 
living  granite,  and,  losing  her  breath,  she  cast  down 
the  shovel  and  seemed  to  bemoan  herself  most  pit- 
eously,  gnashing  her  teeth  (what  few  she  had)  and 
wringing  her  thin  yellow  hands.  Then,  apparently 
with  new  hope,  she  resumed  her  toil,  which  still  had 
the  same  result, — a  circumstance  the  less  surprising 
to  David  and  Esther,  because  at  times  they  would 
catch  the  moonlight  shining  through  the  old  woman, 
and  dancing  in  the  fountain  beyond.  The  little  man 
in  gold-lace  now  happened  to  see  her,  and  made  his 
approach  on  tiptoe. 

"  How  hard  this  elderly  lady  works !  "  remarked 
David. 

"  Go  and  help  her,  David,"  said  Esther,  compas 
sionately. 

As  their  drowsy  voices  spoke,  both  the  old  woman 
and  the  pompous  little  figure  behind  her  lifted  their 
eyes,  and  for  a  moment  they  regarded  the  youth  and 
damsel  with  something  like  kindness  and  affection ; 
which,  however,  were  dim  and  uncertain,  and  passed 
away  almost  immediately.  The  old  woman  again  be 
took  herself  to  the  shovel,  but  was  startled  by  a  hand 
suddenly  laid  upon  her  shoulder  ;  she  turned  round  in 


AN  OLD    WOMAN'S   TALE.  119 

great  trepidation,  and  beheld  the  dignitary  in  the  blue 
coat ;  then  followed  an  embrace  of  such  closeness  as 
would  indicate  no  remoter  connection  than  matrimony 
between  these  two  decorous  persons.  The  gentleman 
next  pointed  to  the  shovel,  appearing  to  inquire  the 
purpose  of  his  lady's  occupation  ;  while  she  as  evi 
dently  parried  his  interrogatories,  maintaining  a  de 
mure  and  sanctified  visage  as  every  good  woman  ought, 
in  similar  cases.  Howbeit,  she  could  not  forbear  look 
ing  askew,  behind  her  spectacles,  towards  the  spot  of 
stubborn  turf.  All  the  while,  their  figures  had  a 
strangeness  in  them,  and  it  seemed  as  if  some  cun 
ning  jeweller  had  made  their  golden  ornaments  of  the 
yellowest  of  the  setting  sunbeams,  and  that  the  blue 
of  their  garments  way  brought  from  the  dark  sky  near 
the  moon,  and  that  the  gentleman's  silk  waistcoat  was 
the  bright  side  of  a  fiery  cloud,  and  the  lady's  scarlet 
petticoat  a  remnant  of  the  blush  of  morning,  —  and 
that  they  both  were  two  unrealities  of  colored  air. 
But  now  there  was  a  sudden  movement  throughout  the 
multitude.  The  Squire  drew  forth  a  watch  as  large 
as  the  dial  on  the  famous  steeple,  looked  at  the  warn 
ing  hands  and  got  him  gone,  nor  could  his  lady  tarry ; 
the  party  at  the  tavern  door  took  to  their  heels,  headed 
by  the  fat  man  in  the  flaming  breeches  ;  the  tall  deacon 
stalked  away  immediately,  and  the  short  deacon  wad 
dled  after,  making  four  steps  to  the  yard  ;  the  moth 
ers  called  their  children  about  them  and  set  forth, 
with  a  gentle  and  sad  glance  behind.  Like  cloudy 
fantasies  that  hurry  by  a  viewless  impulse  from  the 
sky,  they  all  were  fled,  and  the  wind  rose  up  and  fol 
lowed  them  with  a  strange  moaning  down  the  lonely 
street.  Now  whither  these  people  went  is  more  than 
may  be  told  ;  only  David  and  Esther  seemed  to  see  the 


120  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

shadowy  splendor  of  the  ancient  dame,  as  she  lingered 
in  the  moonshine  at  the  graveyard  gate,  gazing  back 
ward  to  the  fountain. 

"  O  Esther !  I  have  had  such  a  dream  ! "  cried  Da 
vid,  starting  up,  and  rubbing  his  eyes. 

"  And  I  such  another  !  "  answered  Esther,  gaping 
till  her  pretty  red  lips  formed  a  circle. 

"  About  an  old  woman  with  gold-bowed  spectacles," 
continued  David. 

"And  a  scarlet  hoop-petticoat,"  added  Esther.  They 
now  stared  in  each  other's  eyes,  with  great  astonish 
ment  and  some  little  fear.  After  a  thoughtful  mo 
ment  or  two,  David  drew  a  long  breath  and  stood  up 
right. 

"  If  I  live  till  to-morrow  morning,"  said  he,  "  I  '11 
see  what  may  be  buried  between  that  tree  and  the 
spring  of  water." 

"  And  why  not  to-night,  David  ?  "  asked  Esther  ; 
for  she  was  a  sensible  little  girl,  and  bethought  herself 
that  the  matter  might  as  well  be  done  in  secrecy. 

David  felt  the  propriety  of  the  remark,  and  looked 
round  for  the  means  of  following  her  advice.  The 
moon  shone  brightly  on  something  that  rested  against 
the  side  of  the  old  house,  and,  on  a  nearer  view,  it 
proved  to  be  an  iron  shovel,  bearing  a  singular  resem 
blance  to  that  which  they  had  seen  in  their  dreams. 
He  used  it  with  better  success  than  the  old  woman, 
the  soil  giving  way  so  freely  to  his  efforts,  that  he  had 
soon  scooped  a  hole  as  large  as  the  basin  of  the  spring. 
Suddenly,  he  poked  his  head  down  to  the  very  bottom 
of  this  cavity.  "  Oho  !  —  what  have  we  here  ?  "  cried 
David. 


TIME'S  PORTRAITURE. 

BEING  THE  CARRIER'S  ADDRESS  TO  THE  PATRONS  OF  "  THE  SALEM 
GAZETTE"  FOB  THK  IST  OF  JANUARY,  1838. 


ADDRESS. 

KIND  PATRONS  :  We  newspaper  carriers  are  Time's 
errand-boys;  and  all  the  year  round  the  old  gentle 
man  sends  us  from  one  of  your  doors  to  another,  to  let 
you  know  what  he  is  talking  about  and  what  he  is  do 
ing.  We  are  a  strange  set  of  urchins  ;  for,  punctually 
on  New  Year's  morning,  one  and  all  of  us  are  seized 
with  a  fit  of  rhyme,  and  break  forth  in  such  hideous 
strains,  that  it  would  be  no  wonder  if  the  infant  Year, 
with  her  step  upon  the  threshold,  were  frightened 
away  by  the  discord  with  which  we  strive  to  welcome 
her.  On  these  occasions,  most  generous  patrons,  you 
never  fail  to  give  us  a  taste  of  your  bounty;  but 
whether  as  a  reward  for  our  verses,  or  to  purchase  a 
respite  from  further  infliction  of  them,  is  best  known 
to  your  worshipful  selves.  Moreover,  we,  Time's  er 
rand-boys  as  aforesaid,  feel  it  incumbent  upon  us, 
on  the  first  day  of  every  year,  to  present  a  sort  of 
summary  of  our  master's  dealings  with  the  world, 
throughout  the  whole  of  the  preceding  twelvemonth. 
Now  it  had  so  chanced,  by  a  misfortune  heretofore  un 
heard  of,  that  I,  your  present  petitioner,  have  been 
altogether  forgotten  by  the  Muse.  Instead  of  being 


122  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

able  (as  I  naturally  expected)  to  measure  iny  ideas 
into  six-foot  lines,  and  tack  a  rhyme  at  each  of  their 
tails,  I  find  myself,  this  blessed  morning,  the  same 
simple  proser  that  I  was  yesterday,  and  shall  prob 
ably  be  to-morrow.  And  to  my  further  mortification, 
being  a  humble-minded  little  sinner,  I  feel  nowise  ca 
pable  of  talking  to  your  worships  with  the  customary 
wisdom  of  my  brethren,  and  giving  sage  opinions  as 
to  what  Time  has  done  right,  and  what  he  has  done 
wrong,  and  what  of  right  or  wrong  he  means  to  do 
hereafter.  Such  being  my  unhappy  predicament,  it 
is  with  no  small  confusion  of  face  that  I  make  bold 
to  present  myself  at  your  doors.  Yet  it  were  surely 
a  pity  that  my  non-appearance  should  defeat  your 
bountiful  designs  for  the  replenishing  of  my  pockets. 
Wherefore  I  have  bethought  me,  that  it  might  not 
displease  your  worships  to  hear  a  few  particulars 
about  the  person  and  habits  of  Father  Time,  with 
whom,  as  being  one  of  his  errand-boys,  I  have  more 
acquaintance  than  most  lads  of  my  years. 

For  a  great  many  years  past,  there  has  been  a  wood 
cut  on  the  cover  of  the  "  Farmer's  Almanac,"  pretend 
ing  to  be  a  portrait  of  Father  Time.  It  represents  that 
respectable  personage  as  almost  in  a  state  of  nudity, 
with  a  single  lock  of  hair  on  his  forehead,  wings  on  his 
shoulders,  and  accoutred  with  a  scythe  and  an  hour 
glass.  These  two  latter  symbols  appear  to  betoken  that 
the  old  fellow  works  in  haying  time,  by  the  hour.  But, 
within  my  recollection,  Time  has  never  carried  a  scythe 
and  an  hour-glass,  nor  worn  a  pair  of  wings,  nor  shown 
himself  in  the  half-naked  condition  that  the  almanac 
would  make  us  believe.  Nowadays,  he  is  the  most 
fashionably  dressed  figure  about  town ;  and  I  take  it 
to  be  his  natural  disposition,  old  as  he  is,  to  adopt 


TIME'S  PORTRAITURE.  123 

every  fashion  of  the  day  and  of  the  hour.  Just  at  the 
present  period,  you  may  meet  him  in  a  furred  surtout, 
with  pantaloons  strapped  under  his  narrow-toed  boots  ; 
on  his  head,  instead  of  a  single  forelock,  he  wears  a 
smart  auburn  wig,  with  bushy  whiskers  of  the  same 
hue,  the  whole  surmounted  by  a  German  -  lustre  hat. 
He  has  exchanged  his  hour-glass  for  a  gold  patent- 
lever  watch,  which  he  carries  in  his  vest-pocket ;  and 
as  for  his  scythe,  he  has  either  thrown  it  aside  alto 
gether,  or  converted  its  handle  into  a  cane  not  much 
stouter  than  a  riding-switch.  If  you  stare  him  full  in 
the  face,  you  will  perhaps  detect  a  few  wrinkles ;  but, 
on  a  hasty  glance,  you  might  suppose  him  to  be  in  the 
very  heyday  of  life,  as  fresh  as  he  was  in  the  garden 
of  Eden.  So  much  for  the  present  aspect  of  Time  ; 
but  I  by  no  means  insure  that  the  description  shall 
suit  him  a  month  hence,  or  even  at  this  hour  to-mor 
row. 

It  is  another  very  common  mistake  to  suppose  that 
Time  wanders  among  old  ruins,  and  sits  on  moulder 
ing  walls  and  moss-grown  stones,  meditating  about 
matters  which  everybody  else  has  forgotten.  Some 
people,  perhaps,  would  expect  to  find  him  at  the 
burial-ground  in  Broad  Street,  poring  over  the  half- 
illegible  inscriptions  on  the  tombs  of  the  Higginsons, 
the  Hathornes,1  the  Holyokes,  the  Brownes,  the  Oli 
vers,  the  Pickmans,  the  Pickerings,  and  other  worthies 
with  whom  he  kept  company  of  old.  Some  would 
look  for  him  on  the  ridge  of  Gallows  Hill,  where,  in 
one  of  his  darkest  moods,  he  and  Cotton  Mather  hung 

1  Not  "  Hawthorne,"  as  one  of  the  present  representatives  of  the 
family  has  seen  fit  to  transmogrify  a  good  old  name.  However,  Time 
has  seldom  occasion  to  mention  the  gentleman's  name,  so  that  it  is  no 
great  matter  how  he  spells  or  pronounces  it. 


124  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

the  witches.  But  they  need  not  seek  him  there.  Time 
is  invariably  the  first  to  forget  his  own  deeds,  his  own 
history,  and  his  own  former  associates.  His  place  is 
in  the  busiest  bustle  of  the  world.  If  you  would  meet 
Time  face  to  face,  you  have  only  to  promenade  in 
Essex  Street,  between  the  hours  of  twelve  and  one ; 
I  and  there,  among  beaux  and  belles,  you  will  see  old 
Father  Time,  apparently  the  gayest  of  the  gay.  He 
walks  arm  in  arm  with  the  young  men,  talking  about 
balls  and  theatres,  and  afternoon  rides,  and  midnight 
merry-makings  ;  he  recommends  such  and  such  a  fash 
ionable  tailor,  and  sneers  at  every  garment  of  six 
months'  antiquity ,  and,  generally,  before  parting,  he 
invites  his  friends  to  drink  champagne,  —  a  wine  in 
which  Time  delights,  on  account  of  its  rapid  efferves 
cence.  And  Time  treads  lightly  beside  the  fair  girls, 
whispering  to  them  (the  old  deceiver  !  )  that  they  are 
the  sweetest  angels  he  ever  was  acquainted  with.  He 
tells  them  that  they  have  nothing  to  do  but  dance  and 
sing,  and  twine  roses  in  their  hair,  and  gather  a  train 
of  lovers,  and  that  the  world  will  always  be  like  an 
illuminated  ball-room.  And  Time  goes  to  the  Com 
mercial  News  -  Koom,  and  visits  the  insurance  -  offices, 
and  stands  at  the  corner  of  Essex  and  St.  Peter's 
Streets,  talking  with  the  merchants  about  the  arrival 
of  ships,  the  rise  and  fall  of  stocks,  the  price  of  cotton 
and  breadstuff's,  the  prospects  of  the  whaling-business, 
and  the  cod -fishery,  and  all  other  news  of  the  day. 
And  the  young  gentlemen,  and  the  pretty  girls,  and 
the  merchants,  and  all  others  with  whom  he  makes  ac 
quaintance,  are  apt  to  think  that  there  is  nobody  like 
Time,  and  that  Time  is  all  in  all. 

But  Time  is  not  near  so  good  a  fellow  as  they  take 
him  for.     He  is  continually  on  the  watch  for  mischief, 


TIME'S  PORTRAITURE.  125 

and  often  seizes  a  sly  opportunity  to  lay  his  cane  over 
the  shoulders  of  some  middle-aged  gentleman ;  and  lo 
and  behold !  the  poor  man's  back  is  bent,  his  hair 
turns  gray,  and  his  face  looks  like  a  shrivelled  apple. 
This  is  what  is  meant  by  being  "  time-stricken."  It 
is  the  worst  feature  in  Time's  character  that  he  al 
ways  inflicts  the  greatest  injuries  on  his  oldest  friends. 
Yet,  shamefully  as  he  treats  them,  they  evince  no  de 
sire  to  cut  his  acquaintance,  and  can  seldom  bear  to 
think  of  a  final  separation. 

Again,  there  is  a  very  prevalent  idea  that  Time 
loves  to  sit  by  the  fireside,  telling  stories  of  the  Puri 
tans,  the  witch  persecutors,  and  the  heroes  of  the  old 
French  War  and  the  Revolution ;  and  that  he  has  no 
memory  for  anything  more  recent  than  the  days  of  the 
first  President  Adams.  This  is  another  great  mistake. 
Time  is  so  eager  to  talk  of  novelties,  that  he  never 
fails  to  give  circulation  to  the  most  incredible  rumors 
of  the  day,  though  at  the  hazard  of  being  compelled  to 
eat  his  own  words  to-morrow.  He  shows  numberless 
instances  of  this  propensity  while  the  national  elections 
are  in  progress.  A  month  ago,  his  mouth  was  full  of 
the  wonderful  Whig  victories ;  and  to  do  him  justice,  he 
really  seems  to  have  told  the  truth  for  once.  Whether 
the  same  story  will  hold  good  another  year,  we  must 
leave  Time  himself  to  show.  He  has  a  good  deal  to 
say,  at  the  present  juncture,  concerning  the  revolution 
ary  movements  in  Canada;  he  blusters  a  little  about 
the  northeastern  boundary  question  ;  he  expresses 
great  impatience  at  the  sluggishness  of  our  command 
ers  in  the  Florida  War ;  he  gets  considerably  excited 
whenever  the  subject  of  abolition  is  brought  forward, 
and  so  much  the  more,  as  he  appears  hardly  to  have 
made  up  his  mind  on  one  side  or  the  other.  When- 


126  TALES  AND   SKETCHES. 

ever  this  happens  to  be  the  case,  — as  it  often  does,  -~ 
Time  works  himself  into  such  a  rage,  that  you  would 
think  he  were  going  to  tear  the  universe  to  pieces  ; 
but  I  never  yet  knew  him  to  proceed,  in  good  earnest, 
to  such  terrible  extremities.  During  the  last  six  or 
seven  months,  he  has  been  seized  with  intolerable  sul- 
kiness  at  the  slightest  mention  of  the  currency;  for 
nothing  vexes  Time  so  much  as  to  be  refused  cash 
upon  the  nail.  The  above  are  the  chief  topics  of  gen 
eral  interest  which  Time  is  just  now  in  the  habit  of 
discussing.  For  his  more  private  gossip  he  has  ru 
mors  of  new  matches,  of  old  ones  broken  off,  with  now 
and  then  a  whisper  of  good  -  natured  scandal ;  some 
times,  too,  he  condescends  to  criticise  a  sermon,  or  a 
lyceum  lecture,  or  performance  of  the  glee-club ;  and, 
to  be  brief,  catch  the  volatile  essence  of  present  talk 
and  transitory  opinions,  and  you  will  have  Time's  gos 
sip,  word  for  word.  I  may  as  well  add,  that  he  ex 
presses  great  approbation  of  Mr.  Russell's  vocal  abil 
ities,  and  means  to  be  present  from  beginning  to  end 
of  his  next  concert.  It  is  not  every  singer  that  could 
keep  Time  with  his  voice  and  instrument,  for  a  whole 
evening. 

Perhaps  you  will  inquire,  "  What  are  Time's  liter 
ary  tastes  ?  "  And  here  again  there  is  a  general  mis 
take.  It  is  conceived  by  many,  that  Time  spends  his 
leisure  hours  at  the  Athenaeum,  turning  over  the  musty 
leaves  of  those  large  worm-eaten  folios,  which  nobody 
else  has  disturbed  since  the  death  of  the  venerable  Dr. 
Oliver.  So  far  from  this  being  the  case,  Time's  pro- 
foundest  studies  are  the  new  novels  from  Messrs.  Ives 
and  Jewett's  Circulating  Library.  He  skims  over  the 
lighter  articles  in  the  periodicals  of  the  day,  glances 
at  the  newspapers,  and  then  throws  them  aside  for- 


TIME'S  PORTRAITURE.  127 

ever,  all  except  "  The  Salem  Gazette,"  of  which  he 
preserves  a  file,  for  his  amusement  a  century  or  two 
hence. 

We  will  now  consider  Time  as  a  man  of  business. 
In  this  capacity,  our  citizens  are  in  the  habit  of  com 
plaining,  not  wholly  without  reason,  that  Time  is  slug 
gish  and  dull.  You  may  see  him  occasionally  at  the 
end  of  Derby  Wharf,  leaning  against  a  post,  or  sitting 
on  the  breech  of  an  iron  cannon,  staring  listlessly  at 
an  unrigged  East-Indiaman.  Or,  if  you  look  through 
the  windows  of  the  Union  Marine  Insurance  Office, 
you  may  get  a  glimpse  of  him  there,  nodding  over  a 
newspaper,  among  the  old  weather-beaten  sea-captains 
who  recollect  when  Time  was  quite  a  different  sort  of 
fellow.  If  you  enter  any  of  the  dry-goods  stores  along 
Essex  Street,  you  will  be  likely  to  find  him  with  his 
elbows  on  the  counter,  bargaining  for  a  yard  of  tape 
or  a  paper  of  pins.  To  catch  him  in  his  idlest  mood, 
you  must  visit  the  office  of  some  young  lawyer.  Still, 
however,  Time  does  contrive  to  do  a  little  business 
among  us,  and  should  not  be  denied  the  credit  of  it. 
During  the  past  season,  he  has  worked  pretty  dili 
gently  upon  the  railroad,  and  promises  to  start  the 
cars  by  the  middle  of  next  summer.  Then  we  may  fly 
from  Essex  Street  to  State  Street,  and  be  back  again 
before  Time  misses  us.  In  conjunction  with  our 
worthy  mayor  (with  whose  ancestor,  the  Lord  Mayor 
of  London,  Time  was  well  acquainted  more  than  two 
hundred  years  ago)  he  has  laid  the  corner-stone  of  a 
new  city  hall,  the  granite  front  of  which  is  already  an 
ornament  to  Court  Street.  But  besides  these  public 
affairs,  Time  busies  himself  a  good  deal  in  private. 
Just  at  this  season  of  the  year,  he  is  engaged  in  col 
lecting  bills,  and  may  be  seen  at  almost  any  hour  per- 


128  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

egrinating  from  street  to  street,  and  knocking  at  half 
the  doors  in  town,  with  a  great  bundle  of  these  infer 
nal  documents.  On  such  errands  he  appears  in  the 
likeness  of  an  undersized,  portly  old  gentleman,  with 
gray  hair,  a  bluff  red  face,  and  a  loud  tone  of  voice  ; 
and  many  people  mistake  him  for  the  penny-post. 

Never  does  a  marriage  take  place,  but  Time  is  pres 
ent  among  the  wedding-guests  ;  for  marriage  is  an  af 
fair  in  which  Time  takes  more  interest  than  in  almost 
any  other.  He  generally  gives  away  the  bride,  and 
leads  the  bridegroom  by  the  hand  to  the  threshold  of 
the  bridal  chamber.  Although  Time  pretends  to  be 
very  merry  on  these  occasions,  yet,  if  you  watch  him 
well,  you  may  often  detect  a  sigh.  Whenever  a  babe 
is  born  into  this  weary  world,  Time  is  in  attendance, 
and  receives  the  wailing  infant  in  his  arms.  And  the 
poor  babe  shudders  instinctively  at  his  embrace,  and 
sets  up  a  feeble  cry.  Then  again,  from  the  birth- 
chamber,  he  must  hurry  to  the  bedside  of  some  old  ac 
quaintance,  whose  business  with  Time  is  ended  forever, 
though  their  accounts  remain  to  be  settled  at  a  future 
day.  It  is  terrible,  sometimes,  to  perceive  the  linger 
ing  reluctance,  the  shivering  agony,  with  which  the 
poor  souls  bid  Time  farewell,  if  they  have  gained  no 
other  friend  to  supply  the  gray  deceiver's  place.  How 
do  they  cling  to  Time,  and  steal  another  and  yet  an 
other  glance  at  his  familiar  aspect!  But  Time,  the 
hard-hearted  old  fellow!  goes  through  such  scenes 
with  infinite  composure,  and  dismisses  his  best  friends 
from  memory  the  moment  they  are  out  of  sight. 
Others,  who  have  not  been  too  intimate  with  Time, 
as  knowing  him  to  be  a  dangerous  character,  and 
apt  to  ruin  his  associates,  —  these  take  leave  of  him 
with  joy,  and  pass  away  with  a  look  of  triumph  on 


TIME'S  PORTRAITURE.  129 

their  features.  They  know  that,  in  spite  of  all  his 
flattering  promises,  he  could  not  make  them  happy, 
but  that  now  they  shall  be  so,  long  after  Time  is  dead 
and  buried. 

For  Time  is  not  immortal.  Time  must  die,  and  be 
buried  in  the  deep  grave  of  eternity.  And  let  him 
die.  From  the  hour  when  he  passed  forth  through  the 
gate  of  Eden,  till  this  very  moment,  he  has  gone  to 
and  fro  about  the  earth,  staining  his  hands  with  blood, 
committing  crimes  innumerable,  and  bringing  misery 
on  himself  and  all  mankind.  Sometimes  he  has  been 
a  pagan  ;  sometimes  a  persecutor.  Sometimes  he  has 
spent  centuries  in  darkness,  where  he  could  neither 
read  nor  write.  These  were  called  the  Dark  Ages. 

O 

There  has  hardly  been  a  single  year,  when  he  has  not 
stirred  up  strife  among  the  nations.  Sometimes,  as 
in  France  less  than  fifty  years  ago,  he  has  been  seized 
with  fits  of  frenzy,  and  murdered  thousands  of  inno 
cent  people  at  noonday.  He  pretends,  indeed,  that  he 
has  grown  wiser  and  better  now.  Trust  him  who  will  ; 
for  my  part,  I  rejoice  that  Time  shall  not  live  forever. 
He  hath  an  appointed  office  to  perform.  Let  him 
do  his  task,  and  die.  Fresh  and  young  as  he  would 
make  himself  appear,  he  is  already  hoary  with  age ; 
and  the  very  garments  that  he  wears  about  the  town 
were  put  on  thousands  of  years  ago,  and  have  been 
patched  and  pieced  to  suit  the  present  fashion.  There 
is  nothing  new  in  him  nor  about  him.  Were  he  to  die 
while  I  am  speaking,  we  could  not  pronounce  it  an 
untimely  death.  Methinks,  with  his  heavy  heart  and 
weary  brain,  Time  should  himself  be  glad  to  die. 

Meanwhile,  gentle  patrons,  as  Time  has  brought 
round  another  New  Year,  pray  remember  your  poor 
petitioner.  For  so  small  a  lad,  you  will  agree  that  I 


130  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

talk  pretty  passably  well,  and  have  fairly  earned  what 
ever  spare  specie  Time  has  left  in  your  pockets.  Be 
kind  to  me  ;  and  I  have  good  hope  that  Time  will  be 
kind  to  you.  After  all  the  hard  things  which  I  have 
said  about  him,  he  is  really,  —  that  is,  if  you  take 
him  for  neither  more  nor  less  than  he  is  worth,  and 
use  him  as  not  abusing  him,  —  Time  is  really  a  very 
tolerable  old  fellow,  and  may  be  endured  for  a  little 
while  that  we  are  to  keep  him  company.  Be  gener 
ous,  kind  patrons,  to  Time's  errand-boy.  So  may  he 
bring  to  the  merchant  his  ship  safe  from  the  Indies ; 
to  the  lawyer,  a  goodly  number  of  new  suits ;  to  the 
doctor,  a  crowd  of  patients  with  the  dyspepsia  and  fat 
purses ;  to  the  farmer,  a  golden  crop  and  a  ready 
market ;  to  the  mechanic,  steady  employment  and  good 
wages ;  to  the  idle  gentleman  some  honest  business ; 
to  the  rich,  kind  hearts  and  liberal  hands;  to  the 
poor,  warm  firesides  and  food  enough,  patient  spirits, 
and  the  hope  of  better  days  ;  to  our  country,  a  return 
of  specie  payments  ;  and  to  you,  sweet  maid,  the  youth 
who  stole  into  your  dream  last  night !  And  next  New 
Year's  Day  (if  I  find  nothing  better  to  do  in  the  mean 
while)  may  Time  again  bring  to  your  doors  your  lov 
ing  little  friend, 

THE  CARRIERO 


"BROWNE'S  FOLLY." 

THE  WAYSIDE,  August  28, 1860. 

MY  DEAR  COUSIN  :  I  should  be  very  glad  to  write 
a  story,  as  you  request,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Essex 
Institute,  or  for  any  other  purpose  that  might  be 
deemed  desirable  by  my  native  towns-people.  But  it 
is  now  many  years  since  the  epoch  of  the  "  Twice-Told 
Tales,"  and  the  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse  "  ;  and 
my  mind  seems  to  have  lost  the  plan  and  measure  of 
those  little  narratives,  in  which  it  was  once  so  unprof- 
itably  fertile.  I  can  write  no  story,  therefore  ;  but 
(rather  than  be  entirely  wanting  to  the  occasion)  I 
will  endeavor  to  describe  a  spot  near  Salem,  on  which 
it  was  once  my  purpose  to  locate  such  a  dreamy  fiction 
as  you  now  demand  of  me. 

It  is  no  other  than  that  conspicuous  hill  (I  really 
know  not  whether  it  lies  in  Salem,  Danvers,  or  Bev 
erly)  which  used  in  my  younger  days  to  be  known  by 
the  name  of  "  Browne's  Folly."  This  eminence  is  a 
long  ridge  rising  out  of  the  level  country  around,  like 
a  whale's  back  out  of  a  calm  sea,  with  the  head  and 
tail  beneath  the  surface.  Along  its  base  ran  a  green 
and  seldom  -  trodden  lane,  with  which  I  was  very  fa 
miliar  in  my  boyhood ;  and  there  was  a  little  brook, 
which  I  remember  to  have  dammed  up  till  its  overflow 
made  a  mimic  ocean.  When  I  last  looked  for  this 
tiny  streamlet,  which  was  still  rippling  freshly  through 
my  memory,  I  found  it  strangely  shrunken ;  a  mere 
ditch  indeed,  and  almost  a  dry  one.  But  the  green 


132  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

lane  was  still  there,  precisely  as  I  remembered  it ;  two 
wheel-tracks,  and  the  beaten  path  of  the  horses'  feet, 
and  grassy  strips  between  ;  the  whole  overshadowed 
by  tall  locust-trees,  and  the  prevalent  barberry-bushes, 
which  are  rooted  so  fondly  into  the  recollections  of 
every  Essex  man. 

From  this  lane  there  is  a  steep  ascent  up  the  side  of 
the  hill,  the  ridge  of  which  affords  two  views  of  very 
wide  extent  and  variety.  On  one  side  is  the  ocean, 
and  Salem  and  Beverly  on  its  shores  ;  on  the  other  a 
rural  scene,  almost  perfectly  level,  so  that  each  man's 
metes  and  bounds  can  be  traced  out  as  on  a  map.  The 
beholder  takes  in  at  a  glance  the  estates  on  which  dif 
ferent  families  have  long  been  situated,  and  the  houses 
where  they  have  dwelt,  and  cherished  their  various  in 
terests,  intermarrying,  agreeing  together,  or  quarrel 
ling,  going  to  live,  annexing  little  bits  of  real  estate, 
acting  out  their  petty  parts  in  life,  and  sleeping  quietly 
under  the  sod  at  last.  A  man's  individual  affairs  look 
not  so  very  important,  when  we  can  climb  high  enough 
to  get  the  idea  of  a  complicated  neighborhood. 

But  what  made  the  hill  particularly  interesting  to 
me  were  the  traces  of  an  old  and  long-vanished  edifice 
midway  on  the  curving  ridge,  and  at  its  highest  point. 
A  pre-revolutionary  magnate,  the  representative  of  a 
famous  old  Salem  family,  had  here  built  himself  a 
pleasure-house,  on  a  scale  of  magnificence,  which,  com 
bined  with  it  airy  site  and  difficult  approach,  obtained 
for  it,  and  for  the  entire:  hill  on  which  it  stood,  the  tra 
ditionary  title  of  "  Browne's  Folly."  Whether  a  folly 
or  no,  the  house  was  certainly  an  unfortunate  one. 
While  still  in  its  glory,  it  was  so  tremendously  shaken 
by  the  earthquake  of  1755  that  the  owner  dared  no 
longer  reside  in  it  ;  and,  practically  acknowledging 


"BROWNE'S  FOLLY.'1'1  133 

that  its  ambitious  site  rendered  it  indeed  a  Folly,  he 
proceeded  to  locate  it  on  humbler  ground.  The  great 
house  actually  took  up  its  march  along  the  declining 
ridge  of  the  hill,  and  came  safely  to  the  bottom, 
where  it  stood  till  within  the  memory  of  men  now 
alive. 

The  proprietor,  meanwhile,  had  adhered  to  the  Roy- 
alist  side,  and  fled  to  England  during  the  Revolution. 
The  mansion  was  left  under  the  care  of  Richard  Derby 
(an  ancestor  of  the  present  Derby  family),  who  had  a 
claim  to  the  Browne  property  through  his  wife,  but 
seems  to  have  held  the  premises  precisely  as  the  refu 
gee  left  them,  for  a  long  term  of  years,  in  the  expec 
tation  of  his  eventual  return.  The  house  remained, 
with  all  its  furniture  in  its  spacious  rooms  and  cham 
bers,  ready  for  the  exile's  occupancy,  as  soon  as  he 
should  reappear.  As  time  went  on,  however,  it  be 
gan  to  be  neglected,  and  was  accessible  to  whatever 
vagrant  or  idle  school-boy,  or  berrying  party,  might 
choose  to  enter  through  its  ill-secured  windows. 

But  there  was  one  closet  in  the  house  which  every 
body  was  afraid  to  enter,  it  being  supposed  that  an  evil 
spirit  —  perhaps  a  domestic  Demon  of  the  Browne 
family  —  was  confined  in  it.  One  day,  three  or  four 
score  years  ago,  some  school-boys  happened  to  be  play 
ing  in  the  deserted  chambers,  and  took  it  into  their 
heads  to  develop  the  secrets  of  this  mysterious  closet. 
With  great  difficulty  and  tremor  they  succeeded  in 
forcing  the  door.  As  it  flew  open,  there  was  a  vision 
of  people  in  garments  of  antique  magnificence,  —  gen 
tlemen  in  curled  wigs  and  tarnished  gold-lace,  and 
ladies  in  brocade  and  quaint  head-dresses,  rushing  tu- 
multuously  forth  and  tumbling  upon  the  floor.  The 


134  TALES  AND  SKETCHES. 

urchins  took  to  their  heels,  in  huge  dismay,  but  crept 
back,  after  a  while,  and  discovered  that  the  apparition 
was  composed  of  a  mighty  pile  of  family  portraits.  I 
had  the  story,  the  better  part  of  a  hundred  years  af 
terwards,  from  the  very  school  -  boy  who  pried  open 
the  closet  door. 

After  standing  many  years  at  the  foot  of  the  hill, 
the  house  was  again  removed  in  three  portions,  and 
was  fashioned  into  three  separate  dwellings,  which,  for 
aught  I  know,  are  yet  extant  in  Danvers. 

The  ancient  site  of  this  proud  mansion  may  still  be 
traced  (or  could  have  been  ten  years  ago)  upon  the 
summit  of  the  hill.  It  consisted  of  two  spacious  wings, 
connected  by  an  intermediate  hall  of  entrance,  which 
fronted  likewise  upon  the  ridge.  Two  shallow  and 
grass-grown  cavities  remain,  of  what  were  once  the 
deep  and  richly  stored  cellars  under  the  two  wings  ; 
and  between  them  is  the  outline  of  the  connecting  hall, 
about  as  deep  as  a  plough  furrow,  and  somewhat 
greener  than  the  surrounding  sod.  The  two  cellars 
are  still  deep  enough  to  shelter  a  visitor  from  the  fresh 
breezes  that  haunt  the  summit  of  the  hill ;  and  bar 
berry-bushes  clustering  within  them  offer  the  harsh 
acidity  of  their  fruits,  instead  of  the  rich  wines  which 
the  colonial  magnate  was  wont  to  store  there  for  his 
guests.  There  I  have  sometimes  sat  and  tried  to  re 
build,  in  my  imagination,  the  stately  house,  or  to  fancy 
what  a  splendid  show  it  must  have  made  even  so  far 
off  as  in  the  streets  of  Salem,  when  the  old  proprietor 
illuminated  his  many  windows  to  celebrate  the  King's 
birthday. 

I  have  quite  forgotten  what  story  I  once  purposed 
writing  about  "Browne's  Folly,"  and  I  freely  offer  the 


"BROWNE'S  FOLLY."  135 

theme  and  site  to  any  of  my  young  townsmen  who  may 
be  afflicted  with  the  same  tendency  towards  fanciful 
narratives  which  haunted  me  in  my  youth  and  long 
afterwards.  Truly  yours, 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 


BIOGEAPHIOAL  STORIES. 


THIS  small  volume  and  others  of  a  similar  character,  from  the 
same  hand,  have  not  been  composed  without  a  deep  sense  of  re 
sponsibility.  The  author  regards  children  as  sacred,  and  would 
not,  for  the  world,  cast  anything  into  the  fountain  of  a  young 
heart  that  might  embitter  and  pollute  its  waters.  And,  even  in 
point  of  the  reputation  to  be  aimed  at,  juvenile  literature  is  as 
well  worth  cultivating  as  any  other.  The  writer,  if  he  succeed 
in  pleasing  his  little  readers,  may  hope  to  be  remembered  by 
them  till  their  own  old  age,  —  a  far  longer  period  of  literary  ex 
istence  than  is  generally  attained  by  those  who  seek  immortality 
from  the  judgments  of  full-grown  men. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 


CHAPTER    I. 

WHEN  Edward  Temple  was  about  eight  or  nine 
years  old  he  was  afflicted  with  a  disorder  of  the  eyes. 
It  was  so  severe,  and  his  sight  was  naturally  so  deli 
cate,  that  the  surgeon  felt  some  apprehensions  lest  the 
boy  should  become  totally  blind.  He  therefore  gave 
strict  directions  to  keep  him  in  a  darkened  chamber, 
with  a  bandage  over  his  eyes.  Not  a  ray  of  the  blessed 
light  of  heaven  could  be  suffered  to  visit  the  poor  lad. 

This  was  a  sad  thing  for  Edward.  It  was  just  the 
same  as  if  there  were  to  be  no  more  sunshine,  nor 
moonlight,  nor  glow  of  the  cheerful  fire,  nor  light  of 
lamps.  A  night  had  begun  which  was  to  continue  per 
haps  for  months,  —  a  longer  and  drearier  night  than 
that  which  voyagers  are  compelled  to  endure  when 
their  ship  is  ice-bound,  throughout  the  winter,  in  the 
Arctic  Ocean.  His  dear  father  and  mother,  his  brother 
George,  and  the  sweet  face  of  little  Emily  Robinson, 
must  all  vanish  and  leave  him  in  utter  darkness  and 
solitude.  Their  voices  and  footsteps,  it  is  true,  would 
be  heard  around  him ;  he  would  feel  his  mother's  em 
brace  and  the  kind  pressure  of  all  their  hands  ;  but 
still  it  would  seem  as  if  they  were  a  thousand  miles 
away. 

And  then  his  studies,  —  they  were  to  be  entirely 


140  BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

given  up.  This  was  another  grievous  trial ;  for  Ed 
ward's  memory  hardly  went  back  to  the  period  when 
he  had  not  known  how  to  read.  Many  and  many  a 
holiday  had  he  spent  at  his  book,  poring  over  its  pages 
until  the  deepening  twilight  confused  the  print  and 
made  all  the  letters  run  into  long  words.  Then  would 
he  press  his*  hands  across  his  eyes  and  wonder  why 
they  pained  him  so ;  and  when  the  candles  were 
lighted,  what  was  the  reason  that  they  burned  so 
dimly,  like  the  moon  in  a  foggy  night  ?  Poor  little 
fellow!  So  far  as  his  eyes  were  concerned  he  was 
already  an  old  man,  and  needed  a  pair  of  spectacles 
almost  as  much  as  his  own  grandfather  did. 

And  now,  alas  !  the  time  was  come,  when  even 
grandfather's  spectacles  could  not  have  assisted  Ed 
ward  to  read.  After  a  few  bitter  tears,  which  only 
pained  his  eyes  the  more,  the  poor  boy  submitted  to 
the  surgeon's  orders.  His  eyes  were  bandaged,  and, 
with  his  mother  on  one  side  and  his  little  friend  Emily 
on  the  other,  he  was  led  into  a  darkened  chamber. 

"  Mother,  I  shall  be  very  miserable ! "  said  Edward, 
sobbing. 

"  Oh  no,  my  dear  child  !  "  replied  his  mother,  cheer 
fully.  "Your  eyesight  was  a  precious  gift  of  Heaven, 
it  is  true  ;  but  you  would  do  wrong  to  be  miserable 
for  its  loss,  even  if  there  were  no  hope  of  regaining  it. 
There  are  other  enjoyments  besides  what  come  to  us 
through  our  eyes." 

"  None  that  are  worth  having,"  said  Edward. 

"  Ah,  but  you  will  not  think  so  long,"  rejoined  Mrs. 
Temple,  with  tenderness.  "  All  of  us  —  your  father, 
and  myself,  and  George,  and  our  sweet  Emily  —  will 
try  to  find  occupation  and  amusement  for  you.  We 
will  use  all  our  eyes  to  make  you  happy.  Will  they 
not  be  better  than  a  single  pair  ?  " 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES,  141 

"  I  will  sit  by  you  all  day  long,"  said  Emily,  in  her 
low,  sweet  voice,  putting  her  hand  into  that  of  Ed 
ward. 

"And  so  will  I,  Ned,"  said  George,  his  elder  brother, 
"  school  time  and  all,  if  my  father  will  permit  me." 

Edward's  brother  George  was  three  or  four  years 
older  than  himself,  —  a  fine,  hardy  lad,  of  a  bold  and 
ardent  temper.  He  was  the  leader  of  his  comrades  in 
all  their  enterprises  and  amusements.  As  to  his  pro 
ficiency  at  study  there  was  not  much  to  be  said.  He 
had  sense  and  ability  enough  to  have  made  himself 
a  scholar,  but  found  so  many  pleasanter  things  to  do 
that  he  seldom  took  hold  of  a  book  with  his  whole 
heart.  So  fond  was  George  of  boisterous  sports  and 
exercises  that  it  was  really  a  great  token  of  affection 
and  sympathy,  when  he  offered  to  sit  all  day  long  in 
a  dark  chamber  with  his  poor  brother  Edward. 

As  for  little  Emily  Robinson,  she  was  the  daughter 
of  one  of  Mr.  Temple's  dearest  friends.  Ever  since 
her  mother  went  to  heaven  (which  was  soon  after  Em 
ily's  birth)  the  little  girl  had  dwelt  in  the  household 
where  we  now  find  her.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Temple  seemed 
to  love  her  as  well  as  their  own  children ;  for  they  had 
no  daughter  except  Emily ;  nor  would  the  boys  have 
known  the  blessing  of  a  sister  had  not  this  gentle 
stranger  come  to  teach  them  what  it  was.  If  I  could 
show  you  Emily's  face,  with  her  dark  hair  smoothed 
away  from  her  forehead,  you  would  be  pleased  with 
her  look  of  simplicity  and  loving  kindness,  but  might 
think  that  she  was  somewhat  too  grave  for  a  child  of 
seven  years  old.  But  you  would  not  love  her  the  less 
for  that. 

So  brother  George  and  this  loving  little  girl  were 
to  be  Edward's  companions  and  playmates  while  he 


142  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

should  be  kept  prisoner  in  the  dark  chamber.  When 
the  first  bitterness  of  his  grief  was  over,  he  began  to 
feel  that  there  might  be  some  comforts  and  enjoy 
ments  in  life  even  for  a  boy  whose  eyes  were  covered 
with  a  bandage. 

"  I  thank  you,  dear  mother,"  said  he,  with  only  a 
few  sobs ;  "  and  you,  Emily  ;  and  you,  too,  George. 
You  will  all  be  very  kind  to  me  I  know.  And  my 
father,  —  will  not  he  come  and  see  me  every  day?" 

"  Yes,  my  dear  boy,"  said  Mr.  Temple ;  for,  though 
invisible  to  Edward,  he  was  standing  close  beside  him. 
"  I  will  spend  some  hours  of  every  day  with  you.  And 
as  I  have  often  amused  you  by  relating  stories  and  ad 
ventures  while  you  had  the  use  of  your  eyes,  I  can  do 
the  same  now  that  you  are  unable  to  read.  Will  this 
please  you,  Edward  ?  " 

"  Oh,  very  much,"  replied  Edward. 

"  Well,  then,"  said  his  father,  "  this  evening  we  will 
begin  the  series  of  Biographical  Stories  which  I  prom 
ised  you  some  time  ago." 


CHAPTER  II. 

WHEN  evening  came,  Mr.  Temple  found  Edward 
considerably  revived  in  spirits,  and  disposed  to  be  re 
signed  to  his  misfortune.  Indeed,  the  figure  of  the 
boy,  as  it  was  dimly  seen  by  the  firelight,  reclining  in 
a  well-stuffed  easy  chair,  looked  so  very  comfortable 
that  many  people  might  have  envied  him.  When  a 
man's  eyes  have  grown  old  with  gazing  at  the  ways  of 
the  world,  it  does  not  seem  such  a  terrible  misfortune 
to  have  them  bandaged. 

Little  Emily  Robinson  sat  by  Edward's  side  with 
the  air  of  an  accomplished  nurse.  As  well  as  the 
duskiness  of  the  chamber  would  permit,  she  watched 
all  his  motions  and  each  varying  expression  of  his 
face,  and  tried  to  anticipate  her  patient's  wishes  be 
fore  his  tongue  could  utter  them.  Yet  it  was  notice 
able  that  the  child  manifested  an  indescribable  awe 
and  disquietude  whenever  she  fixed  her  eyes  on  the 
bandage ;  for,  to  her  simple  and  affectionate  heart,  it 
seemed  as  if  her  dear  friend  Edward  was  separated 
from  her  because  she  could  not  see  his  eyes.  A  friend's 
eyes  tell  us  many  things  which  could  never  be  spoken 
by  the  tongue. 

George,  likewise,  looked  awkward  and  confused,  as 
stout  and  healthy  boys  are  accustomed  to  do  in  the 
society  of  the  sick  or  afflicted.  Never  having  felt  pain 
or  sorrow,  they  are  abashed,  from  not  knowing  how  to 
sympathize  with  the  sufferings  of  others. 

"  Well,  my  dear  Edward,"  inquired  Mrs.  Temple, 


144  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

"  is  your  chair  quite  comfortable  ?  and  has  your  little 
nurse  provided  for  all  your  wants  ?  If  so,  your  father 
is  ready  to  begin  his  stories." 

"  Oh,  I  am  very  well  now,"  answered  Edward,  with 
a  faint  smile.  "  And  my  ears  have  not  forsaken  me, 
though  my  eyes  are  good  for  nothing.  So  pray,  dear 
father,  begin." 

It  was  Mr.  Temple's  design  to  tell  the  children  a 
series  of  true  stories,  the  incidents  of  which  should  be 
taken  from  the  childhood  and  early  life  of  eminent 
people.  Thus  he  hoped  to  bring  George,  and  Edward, 
and  Emily  into  closer  acquaintance  with  the  famous 
persons  who  have  lived  in  other  times  by  showing  that 
they  also  had  been  children  once.  Although  Mr. 
Temple  was  scrupulous  to  relate  nothing  but  what  was 
founded  on  fact,  yet  he  felt  himself  at  liberty  to  clothe 
the  incidents  of  his  narrative  in  a  new  coloring,  so  that 
his  auditors  might  understand  them  the  better. 

"  My  first  story,"  said  he,  "  shall  be  about  a  painter 
of  pictures." 

"  Dear  me  !  "  cried  Edward,  with  a  sigh.  "  I  am 
afraid  I  shall  never  look  at  pictures  any  more." 

"  We  will  hope  for  the  best,"  answered  his  father. 
"  In  the  mean  time,  you  must  try  to  see  things  within 
your  own  mind." 

Mr.  Temple  then  began  the  following  story  :  — 

BENJAMIN   WEST. 

[BORN  1738.    DIED  1820.] 

In  the  year  1738  there  came  into  the  world,  in  the 
town  of  Springfield,  Pennsylvania,  a  Quaker  infant, 
from  whom  his  parents  and  neighbors  looked  for  won 
derful  things.  A  famous  preacher  of  the  Society  of 
Friends  had  prophesied  about  little  Ben,  and  foretold 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  145 

that  he  would  be  one  of  the  most  remarkable  charac 
ters  that  had  appeared  on  the  earth  since  the  days  of 
William  Penn.  On  this  account,  the  eyes  of  many 
people  were  fixed  upon  the  boy.  Some  of  his  ances 
tors  had  won  great  renown  in  the  old  wars  of  England 
and  France ;  but  it  was  probably  expected  that  Ben 
would  become  a  preacher,  and  would  convert  multi 
tudes  to  the  peaceful  doctrines  of  the  Quakers.  Friend 
West  and  his  wife  were  thought  to  be  very  fortunate 
in  having  such  a  son. 

Little  Ben  lived  to  the  ripe  age  of  six  years  without 
doing  anything  that  was  worthy  to  be  told  in  history. 
But  one  summer  afternoon,  in  his  seventh  year,  his 
mother  put  a  fan  into  his  hand  and  bade  him  keep  the 
flies  away  from  the  face  of  a  little  babe  who  lay  fast 
asleep  in  the  cradle.  She  then  left  the  room. 

The  boy  waved  the  fan  to  and  fro,  and  drove  away 
the  buzzing  flies  whenever  they  had  the  impertinence 
to  come  near  the  baby's  face.  When  they  had  all 
flown  out  of  the  window  or  into  distant  parts  of  the 
room,  he  bent  over  the  cradle  and  delighted  himself 
with  gazing  at  the  sleeping  infant.  It  was,  indeed,  a 
very  pretty  sight.  The  little  personage  in  the  cradle 
slumbered  peacefully,  with  its  waxen  hands  under  its 
chin,  looking  as  full  of  blissful  quiet  as  if  angels  were 
singing  lullabies  in  its  ear.  Indeed,  it  must  have  been 
dreaming  about  heaven ;  for,  while  Ben  stooped  over 
the  cradle,  the  little  baby  smiled. 

"  How  beautiful  she  looks ! "  said  Ben  to  himself. 
"  What  a  pity  it  is  that  such  a  pretty  smile  should  not 
last  forever ! " 

Now  Ben,  at  this  period  of  his  life,  had  never  heard 
of  that  wonderful  art  by  which  a  look,  that  appears 
and  vanishes  in  a  moment,  may  be  made  to  last  for 

VOL.    XII.  10 


146  BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

hundreds  of  years.  But,  though  nobody  had  told  him 
of  such  an  art,  he  may  be  said  to  have  invented  it  for 
himself.  On  a  table  near  at  hand  there  were  pens 
and  paper,  and  ink  of  two  colors,  black  and  red.  The 
boy  seized  a  pen  and  sheet  of  paper,  and,  kneeling 
down  beside  the  cradle,  began  to  draw  a  likeness  of 
the  infant.  While  he  was  busied  in  this  manner  he 
heard  his  mother's  step  approaching,  and  hastily  tried 
to  conceal  the  paper. 

"  Benjamin,  my  son,  what  hast  thou  been  doing  ?  " 
inquired  his  mother,  observing  marks  of  confusion  in 
his  face. 

At  first  Ben  was  unwilling  to  tell ;  for  he  felt  as  if 
there  might  be  something  wrong  in  stealing  the  baby's 
face  and  putting  it  upon  a  sheet  of  paper.  However, 
as  his  mother  insisted,  he  finally  put  the  sketch  into 
her  hand,  and  then  hung  his  head,  expecting  to  be  well 
scolded.  But  when  the  good  lady  saw  what  was  on 
the  paper,  in  lines  of  red  and  black  ink,  she  uttered 
a  scream  of  surprise  and  joy. 

"  Bless  me !  "  cried  she.  "  It  is  a  picture  of  little 
Sally!" 

And  then  she  threw  her  arms  around  our  friend 
Benjamin,  and  kissed  him  so  tenderly  that  he  never 
afterwards  was  afraid  to  show  his  performances  to  his 
mother. 

As  Ben  grew  older,  he  was  observed  to  take  vast  de 
light  in  looking  at  the  hues  and  forms  of  nature.  For 
instance,  he  was  greatly  pleased  with  the  blue  violets 
of  spring,  the  wild  roses  of  summer,  and  the  scarlet 
cardinal-flowers  of  early  autumn.  In  the  decline  of 
the  year,  when  the  woods  were  variegated  with  all  the 
colors  of  the  rainbow,  Ben  seemed  to  desire  nothing 
better  than  to  gaze  at  them  from  morn  till  night.  The 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  147 

purple  and  golden  clouds  of  sunset  were  a  joy  to  him. 
And  he  was  continually  endeavoring  to  draw  the  fig 
ures  of  trees,  men,  mountains,  houses,  cattle,  geese, 
ducks,  and  turkeys,  with  a  piece  of  chalk,  on  barn 
doors  or  on  the  floor. 

In  these  old  times  the  Mohawk  Indians  were  still 
numerous  in  Pennsylvania.  Every  year  a  party  of 
them  used  to  pay  a  visit  to  Springfield,  because  the 
wigwams  of  their  ancestors  had  formerly  stood  there. 
These  wild  men  grew  fond  of  little  Ben,  and  made  him 
very  happy  by  giving  him  some  of  the  red  and  yellow 
paint  with  which  they  were  accustomed  to  adorn  their 
faces.  His  mother,  too,  presented  him  with  a  piece  of 
indigo.  Thus  he  had  now  three  colors,  —  red,  blue, 
and  yellow,  —  and  could  manufacture  green  by  mixing 
the  yellow  with  the  blue.  Our  friend  Ben  was  over 
joyed,  and  doubtless  showed  his  gratitude  to  the  In 
dians  by  taking  their  likenesses  in  the  strange  dresses 
which  they  wore,  with  feathers,  tomahawks,  and  bows 
and  arrows. 

But  all  this  time  the  young  artist  had  no  paint 
brushes  ;  nor  were  there  any  to  be  bought,  unless  he 
had  sent  to  Philadelphia  on  purpose.  However,  he 
was  a  very  ingenious  boy,  and  resolved  to  manufacture 
paint-brushes  for  himself.  With  this  design  he  laid 
hold  upon  —  what  do  you  think  ?  Why,  upon  a  re 
spectable  old  black  cat,  who  was  sleeping  quietly  by 
the  fireside. 

"  Puss,"  said  little  Ben  to  the  cat,  "  pray  give  me 
some  of  the  fur  from  the  tip  of  thy  tail  ?  " 

Though  he  addressed  the  black  cat  so  civilly,  yet 
Ben  was  determined  to  have  the  fur  whether  she  were 
willing  or  not.  Puss,  who  had  no  great  zeal  for  the 
fine  arts,  would  have  resisted  if  she  could  ;  but  the 


148  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

boy  was  armed  with  his  mother's  scissors,  and  very 
dexterously  clipped  off  fur  enough  to  make  a  paint 
brush.  This  was  of  so  much  use  to  him  that  he  ap 
plied  to  Madam  Puss  again  and  again,  until  her 
warm  coat  of  fur  had  become  so  thin  and  ragged  that 
she  could  hardly  keep  comfortable  through  the  winter. 
Poor  thing !  she  was  forced  to  creep  close  into  the 
chimney-corner,  and  eyed  Ben  with  a  very  rueful  phys 
iognomy.  But  Ben  considered  it  more  necessary  that 
he  should  have  paint-brushes  than  that  puss  should  be 
warm. 

About  this  period  friend  West  received  a  visit  from 
Mr.  Pennington,  a  merchant  of  Philadelphia,  who  was 
likewise  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  The 
visitor,  on  entering  the  parlor,  was  surprised  to  see  it 
ornamented  with  drawings  of  Indian  chiefs,  and  of 
birds  with  beautiful  plumage,  and  of  the  wild  flowers 
of  the  forest.  Nothing  of  the  kind  was  ever  seen  be 
fore  in  the  habitation  of  a  Quaker  farmer. 

"  Why,  Friend  West,"  exclaimed  the  Philadelphia 
merchant,  "  what  has  possessed  thee  to  cover  thy  walls 
with  all  these  pictures  ?  Where  on  earth  didst  thou 
get  them  ?  " 

Then  Friend  West  explained  that  all  these  pictures 
were  painted  by  little  Ben,  with  no  better  materials 
than  red  and  yellow  ochre  and  a  piece  of  indigo,  and 
with  brushes  made  of  the  black  cat's  fur. 

"  Verily,"  said  Mr.  Pennington,  "  the  boy  hath  a 
wonderful  faculty.  Some  of  our  friends  might  look 
upon  these  matters  as  vanity  ;  but  little  Benjamin  ap 
pears  to  have  been  born  a  painter  ;  and  Providence  is 
wiser  than  we  are," 

The  good  merchant  patted  Benjamin  on  the  head, 
and  evidently  considered  him  a  wonderful  boy.  When 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  149 

his  parents  saw  how  much  their  son's  performances 
were  admired,  they,  no  doubt,  remembered  the  proph 
ecy  of  the  old  Quaker  preacher  respecting  Ben's  future 
eminence.  Yet  they  could  not  understand  how  he  was 
ever  to  become  a  very  great  and  useful  man  merely  by 
making  pictures. 

One  evening,  shortly  after  Mr.  Pennington's  return 
to  Philadelphia,  a  package  arrived  at  Springfield,  di 
rected  to  our  little  friend  Ben. 

"  What  can  it  possibly  be  ?  "  thought  Ben,  when  it 
was  put  into  his  hands.  "  Who  can  have  sent  me  such 
a  great  square  package  as  this  ?  " 

On  taking  off  the  thick  brown  paper  which  enveloped 
it,  behold !  there  was  a  paint-box,  with  a  great  many 
cakes  of  paint,  and  brushes  of  various  sizes.  It  was 
the  gift  of  good  Mr.  Pennington.  There  were  like 
wise  several  squares  of  canvas  such  as  artists  use  for 
painting  pictures  upon,  and,  in  addition  to  all  these 
treasures,  some  beautiful  engravings  of  landscapes. 
These  were  the  first  pictures  that  Ben  had  ever  seen 
except  those  of  his  own  drawing. 

What  a  joyful  evening  was  this  for  the  little  artist ! 
At  bedtime  he  put  the  paint-box  under  his  pillow,  and 
got  hardly  a  wink  of  sleep  ;  for,  all  night  long,  his 
fancy  was  painting  pictures  in  the  darkness.  In  the 
morning  he  hurried  to  the  garret,  and  was  seen  no 
more  till  the  dinner-hour;  nor  did  he  give  himself 
time  to  eat  more  than  a  mouthful  or  two  of  food  be 
fore  he  hurried  back  to  the  garret  again.  The  next 
day,  and  the  next,  he  was  just  as  busy  as  ever ;  until 
at  last  his  mother  thought  it  time  to  ascertain  what 
he  was  about.  She  accordingly  followed  him  to  the 
garret. 

On  opening  the  door,  the  first  object  that  presented 


150  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

itself  to  her  eyes  was  our  friend  Benjamin,  giving  the 
last  touches  to  a  beautiful  picture.  He.  had  copied 
portions  of  two  of  the  engravings,  and  made  one  pic 
ture  out  of  both,  with  such  admirable  skill  that  it  was 
far  more  beautiful  than  the  originals.  The  grass,  the 
trees,  the  water,  the  sky,  and  the  houses  were  all 
painted  in  their  proper  colors.  There,  too,  were  the 
sunshine  and  the  shadow,  looking  as  natural  as  life. 

"  My  dear  child,  thou  hast  done  wonders !  "  cried 
his  mother. 

The  good  lady  was  in  an  ecstasy  of  delight.  And 
well  might  she  be  proud  of  her  boy ;  for  there  were 
touches  in  this  picture  which  old  artists,  who  had 
spent  a  lifetime  in  the  business,  need  not  have  been 
ashamed  of.  Many  a  year  afterwards,  this  wonderful 
production  was  exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy  in 
London. 

When  Benjamin  was  quite  a  large  lad  he  was  sent 
to  school  at  Philadelphia.  Not  long  after  his  arrival 
he  had  a  slight  attack  of  fever,  which  confined  him  to 
his  bed.  The  light,  which  would  otherwise  have  dis 
turbed  him,  was  excluded  from  his  chamber  by  means 
of  closed  wooden  shutters.  At  first  it  appeared  so  to- 
tally  dark  that  Ben  could  not  distinguish  any  object  in 
the  room.  By  degrees,  however,  his  eyes  became  ac 
customed  to  the  scanty  light. 

He  was  lying  on  his  back,  looking  up  towards  the 
ceiling,  when  suddenly  he  beheld  the  dim  apparition 
of  a  white  cow  moving  slowly  over  his  head !  Ben 
started,  and  rubbed  his  eyes  in  the  greatest  amaze 
ment. 

"  What  can  this  mean  ?  "  thought  he. 

The  white  cow  disappeared  ;  and  next  came  several 
pigs,  which  trotted  along  the  ceiling  and  vanished  into 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  151 

the  darkness  of  the  chamber.  So  lifelike  did  these 
grunters  look  that  Ben  almost  seemed  to  hear  them 
squeak. 

"  Well,  this  is  very  strange  !  "  said  Ben  to  himself. 

When  the  people  of  the  house  came  to  see  him, 
Benjamin  told  them  of  the  marvellous  circumstance 
which  had  occurred.  But  they  would  not  believe 
him. 

"  Benjamin,  thou  art  surely  out  of  thy  senses !  " 
cried  they.  "  How  is  it  possible  that  a  white  cow  and 
a  litter  of  pigs  should  be  visible  on  the  ceiling  of  a 
dark  chamber  ?  " 

Ben,  however,  had  great  confidence  in  his  own  eye 
sight,  and  was  determined  to  search  the  mystery  to  the 
bottom.  For  this  purpose,  when  he  was  again  left 
alone,  he  got  out  of  bed  and  examined  the  window- 
shutters.  He  soon  perceived  a  small  chink  in  one  of 
them,  through  which  a  ray  of  light  found  its  passage 
and  rested  upon  the  ceiling.  Now,  the  science  of 
optics  will  inform  us  that  the  pictures  of  the  white  cow 
and  the  pigs,  and  of  other  objects  out  of  doors,  came 
into  the  dark  chamber  through  this  narrow  chink,  and 
were  painted  over  Benjamin's  head.  It  is  greatly  to 
his  credit  that  he  discovered  the  scientific  principle  of 
this  phenomenon,  and,  by  means  of  it,  constructed  a 
camera-obscura,  or  magic-lantern,  out  of  a  hollow  box. 
This  was  of  great  advantage  to  him  in  drawing  land 
scapes. 

Well,  time  went  on,  and  Benjamin  continued  to 
draw  and  paint  pictures  until  he  had  now  reached  the 
age  when  it  was  proper  that  he  should  choose  a  busi 
ness  for  life.  His  father  and  mother  were  in  consider 
able  perplexity  about  him.  According  to  the  ideas  of 
the  Quakers,  it  is  not  right  for  people  to  spend  their 


152  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

lives  in  occupations  that  are  no  real  and  sensible  ad 
vantage  to  the  world.  Now,  what  advantage  could 
the  world  expect  from  Benjamin's  pictures  ?  This  was 
a  difficult  question  ;  and,  in  order  to  set  their  minds 
at  rest,  his  parents  determined  to  consult  the  preachers 
and  wise  men  of  their  society.  Accordingly,  they  all 
assembled  in  the  meeting-house,  and  discussed  the  mat 
ter  from  beginning  to  end. 

Finally  they  came  to  a  very  wise  decision.  It  seemed 
so  evident  that  Providence  had  created  Benjamin  to  be 
a  painter,  and  had  given  him  abilities  which  would  be 
thrown  away  in  any  other  business,  that  the  Quakers 
resolved  not  to  oppose  his  inclination.  They  even  ac 
knowledged  that  the  sight  of  a  beautiful  picture  might 
convey  instruction  to  the  mind,  and  might  benefit  the 
heart  as  much  as  a  good  book  or  a  wise  discourse. 
They  therefore  committed  the  youth  to  the  direction 
of  God,  being  well  assured  that  he  best  knew  what  was 
his  proper  sphere  of  usefulness.  The  old  men  laid 
their  hands  upon  Benjamin's  head  and  gave  him  their 
blessing,  and  the  women ,  kissed  him  affectionately. 
All  consented  that  he  should  go  forth  into  the  world 
and  learn  to  be  a  painter  by  studying  the  best  pictures 
of  ancient  and  modern  times. 

So  our  friend  Benjamin  left  the  dwelling  of  his  par 
ents,  and  his  native  woods  and  streams,  and  the  good 
Quakers  of  Springfield,  and  the  Indians  who  had 
given  him  his  first  colors ;  he  left  all  the  places  and 
persons  whom  he  had  hitherto  known,  and  returned 
to  them  no  more.  lie  went  first  to  Philadelphia,  and 
afterwards  to  Europe.  Here  he  was  noticed  by  many 
great  people,  but  retained  all  the  sobriety  and  simplic 
ity  which  he  had  learned  among  the  Quakers.  It  is 
related  of  him,  that,  when  he  was  presented  at  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  153 

court  of  the  Prince  of  Parma,  he  kept  his  hat  upon  his 
head  even  while  kissing  the  Prince's  hand. 

When  he  was  twenty-five  years  old  he  went  to  Lon 
don,  and  established  himself  there  as  an  artist.  In  due 
course  of  time  he  acquired  great  fame  by  his  pictures, 
and  was  made  chief  painter  to  King  George  III.  and 
president  of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Arts.  When  the 
Quakers  of  Pennsylvania  heard  of  his  success,  they 
felt  that  the  prophecy  of  the  old  preacher  as  to  little 
Ben's  future  eminence  was  now  accomplished.  It  is 
true,  they  shook  their  heads  at  his  pictures  of  battle 
and  bloodshed,  such  as  the  Death  of  Wolfe,  thinking 
that  these  terrible  scenes  should  not  be  held  up  to  the 
admiration  of  the  world. 

But  they  approved  of  the  great  paintings  in  which 
he  represented  the  miracles  and  sufferings  of  the  Re 
deemer  of  mankind.  King  George  employed  him  to 
adorn  a  large  and  beautiful  chapel  at  Windsor  Castle 
with  pictures  of  these  sacred  subjects.  He  likewise 
painted  a  magnificent  picture  of  Christ  Healing  the 
Sick,  which  he  gave  to  the  hospital  at  Philadelphia. 
It  was  exhibited  to  the  public,  and  produced  so  much 
profit  that  the  hospital  was  enlarged  so  as  to  accom 
modate  thirty  more  patients.  If  Benjamin  West  had 
done  no  other  good  deed  than  this,  yet  it  would  have 
been  enough  to  entitle  him  to  an  honorable  remem 
brance  forever.  At  this  very  day  there  are  thirty  poor 
people  in  the  hospital  who  owe  all  their  comforts  to 
that  same  picture. 

We  shall  mention  only  a  single  incident  more.  The 
picture  of  Christ  Healing  the  Sick  was  exhibited  at 
the  Royal  Academy  in  London,  where  it  covered  a 
vast  space,  and  displayed  a  multitude  of  figures  as 
large  as  life.  On  the  wall,  close  beside  this  admirable 


154  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

picture,  hung  a  small  and  faded  landscape.  It  was 
the  same  that  little  Ben  had  painted  in  his  father's 
garret,  after  receiving  the  paint-box  and  engravings 
from  good  Mr.  Pennington. 

He  lived  many  years  in  peace  and  honor,  and  died 
in  1820,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two.  The  story  of  his 
life  is  almost  as  wonderful  as  a  fairy  tale ;  for  there 
are  few  stranger  transformations  than  that  of  a  little 
unknown  Quaker  boy,  in  the  wilds  of  America,  into 
the  most  distinguished  English  painter  of  his  day. 
Let  us  each  make  the  best  use  of  our  natural  abili 
ties  as  Benjamin  West  did ;  and,  with  the  blessing  of 
Providence,  we  shall  arrive  at  some  good  end.  As  for 
fame,  it  is  but  little  matter  whether  we  acquire  it  or 
not. 

"Thank  you  for  the  story,  my  dear  father,"  said 
Edward,  when  it  was  finished.  "  Do  you  know  that 
it  seems  as  if  I  could  see  things  without  the  help  of 
my  eyes  ?  While  you  were  speaking  I  have  seen  little 
Ben,  and  the  baby  in  its  cradle,  and  the  Indians,  and 
the  white  cow,  and  the  pigs,  and  kind  Mr.  Pennington, 
and  all  the  good  old  Quakers,  almost  as  plainly  as  if 
they  were  in  this  very  room." 

"  It  is  because  your  attention  was  not  disturbed  by 
outward  objects,"  replied  Mr.  Temple.  "  People,  when 
deprived  of  sight,  often  have  more  vivid  ideas  than 
those  who  possess  the  perfect  use  of  their  eyes.  I  will 
venture  to  say  that  George  has  not  attended  to  the 
story  quite  so  closely." 

"  No,  indeed,"  said  George ;  "  but  it  was  a  very 
pretty  story  for  all  that.  How  I  should  have  laughed 
to  see  Ben  making  a  paint-brush  out  of  the  black  cat's 
tail !  I  intend  to  try  the  experiment  with  Emily's 
kitten." 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  155 

"  Oh  no,  no,  George ! "  cried  Emily,  earnestly.  "  My 
kitten  cannot  spare  her  tail." 

Edward  being  an  invalid,  it  was  now  time  for  him 
to  retire  to  bed.  When  the  family  bade  him  good 
night  he  turned  his  face  towards  them,  looking  very 
loath  to  part. 

"  I  shall  not  know  when  morning  comes,"  said  he, 
sorrowfully.  "  And,  besides,  1  want  to  hear  your 
voices  all  the  time ;  for,  when  nobody  is  speaking,  it 
seems  as  if  I  were  alone  in  a  dark  world." 

"  You  must  have  faith,  my  dear  child,"  replied  his 
mother.  "  Faith  is  the  soul's  eyesight ;  and  when  we 
possess  it  the  world  is  never  dark  nor  lonely." 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  next  day  Edward  began  to  get  accustomed  to 
his  new  condition  of  life.  Once,  indeed,  when  his  par 
ents  were  out  of  the  way  and  only  Emily  was  left  to 
take  care  of  him,  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to 
thrust  aside  the  bandage,  and  peep  at  the  anxious  face 
of  his  little  nurse.  But,  in  spite  of  the  dimness  of  the 
chamber,  the  experiment  caused  him  so  much  pain 
that  he  felt  no  inclination  to  take  another  Iqpk.  So, 
with  a  deep  sigh,  he  resigned  himself  to  his  fate. 

"  Emily,  pray  talk  to  me  !  "  said  he,  somewhat  im 
patiently. 

Now,  Emily  was  a  remarkably  silent  little  girl,  and 
did  not  possess  that  liveliness  of  disposition  which  ren 
ders  some  children  such  excellent  companions.  She 
seldom  laughed,  and  had  not  the  faculty  of  making 
many  words  about  small  matters.  But  the  love  and 
earnestness  of  her  heart  taught  her  how  to  amuse  poor 
Edward  in  his  darkness.  She  put  her  knitting-work 
into  his  hands. 

"  You  must  learn  how  to  knit,"  said  she. 

"  What !  without  using  my  eyes  ?  "  cried  Edward. 

"  I  can  knit  with  my  eyes  shut,"  replied  Emily. 

Then  with  her  own  little  hands  she  guided  Edward's 
fingers  while  he  set  about  this  new  occupation.  So 
awkward  were  his  first  attempts  that  any  other  little 
girl  would  have  laughed  heartily.  But  Emily  pre 
served  her  gravity,  and  showed  the  utmost  patience  in 
taking  up  the  innumerable  stitches  which  he  let  down. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  157 

In  the  course  of  an  hour  or  two,  his  progress  was 
quite  encouraging. 

When  evening  came,  Edward  acknowledged  that 
the  day  had  been  far  less  wearisome  than  he  antici 
pated.  But  he  was  glad,  nevertheless,  when  his  fa 
ther  and  mother,  and  George  and  Emily,  all  took  their 
seats  around  his  chair.  He  put  out  his  hand  to  grasp 
each  of  their  hands,  and  smiled  with  a  very  bright  ex 
pression  upon  his  lips. 

"  Now  I  can  see  you  all  with  my  mind's  eye,"  said 
he.  "  And  now,  father,  pray  tell  us  another  story." 

So  Mr.  Temple  began. 

SIR  ISAAC  NEWTON. 

[BORN  1G42.    DIED  1727.] 

On  Christmas  Day,  in  the  year  1642,  Isaac  Newton 
was  born  at  the  small  village  of  Woolsthorpe,  in  Eng 
land.  Little  did  his  mother  think,  when  she  beheld 
her  new-born  babe,  that  he  was  destined  to  explain 
many  matters  which  had  been  a  mystery  ever  since 
the  creation  of  the  world. 

Isaac's  father  being  dead,  Mrs.  Newton  was  married 
again  to  a  clergyman,  and  went  to  reside  at  North 
Witham.  Her  son  was  left  to  the  care  of  his  good  old 
grandmother,  who  was  very  kind  to  him  and  sent  him 
to  school.  In  his  early  years  Isaac  did  not  appear  to 
be  a  very  bright  scholar,  but  was  chiefly  remarkable 
for  his  ingenuity  in  all  mechanical  occupations.  He 
had  a  set  of  little  tools  and  saws  of  various  sizes  man 
ufactured  by  himself.  With  the  aid  of  these  Isaac 
contrived  to  make  many  curious  articles,  at  which  he 
worked  with  so  much  skill  that  he  seemed  to  have  been 
born  with  a  saw  or  chisel  in  hand. 

The  neighbors  looked  with  vast  admiration  at  the 


158  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

things  which  Isaac  manufactured.  And  his  old  grand 
mother,  I  suppose,  was  never  weary  of  talking  about 
him. 

"  He  '11  make  a  capital  workman  one  of  these  days," 
she  would  probably  say.  "  No  fear  but  what  Isaac 
will  do  well  in  the  world  and  be  a  rich  man  before  he 
dies." 

It  is  amusing  to  conjecture  what  were  the  antici 
pations  of  his  grandmother  and  the  neighbors  about 
Isaac's  future  life.  Some  of  them,  perhaps,  fancied 
that  he  would  make  beautiful  furniture  of  mahogany, 
rosewood,  or  polished  oak,  inlaid  with  ivory  and  ebony, 
and  magnificently  gilded.  And  then,  doubtless,  all 
the  rich  people  would  purchase  these  fine  things  to 
adorn  their  drawing-rooms.  Others  probably  thought 
that  little  Isaac  was  destined  to  be  an  architect,  and 
would  build  splendid  mansions  for  the  nobility  and 
gentry,  and  churches  too,  with  the  tallest  steeples  that 
had  ever  been  seen  in  England. 

Some  of  his  friends,  no  doubt,  advised  Isaac's  grand 
mother  to  apprentice  him  to  a  clock-maker ;  for,  be 
sides  his  mechanical  skill,  the  boy  seemed  to  have  a 
taste  for  mathematics,  which  would  be  very  useful  to 
him  in  that  profession.  And  then,  in  due  time,  Isaac 
would  set  up  for  himself,  and  would  manufacture  curi 
ous  clocks,  like  those  that  contain  sets  of  dancing  fig 
ures,  which  issue  from  the  dial-plate  when  the  hour  is 
struck ;  or  like  those  where  a  ship  sails  across  the  face 
of  the  clock,  and  is  seen  tossing  up  and  down  on  the 
waves  as  often  as  the  pendulum  vibrates. 

Indeed,  there  was  some  ground  for  supposing  that 
Isaac  would  devote  himself  to  the  manufacture  of 
clocks  ;  since  he  had  already  made  one  of  a  kind  which 
nobody  had  ever  heard  of  before.  It  was  set  a-going, 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  159 

not  by  wheels  and  weights  like  other  clocks,  but  by 
the  dropping  of  water.  This  was  an  object  of  great 
wonderment  to  all  the  people  round  about;  and  it 
must  be  confessed  that  there  are  few  boys,  or  men 
either,  who  could  contrive  to  tell  what  o'clock  it  is  by 
means  of  a  IDOW!  of  water. 

Besides  the  water-clock,  Isaac  made  a  sundial.  Thus 
his  grandmother  was  never  at  a  loss  to  know  the  hour ; 
for  the  water-clock  would  tell  it  in  the  shade,  and  the 
dial  in  the  sunshine.  The  sundial  is  said  to  be  still 
in  existence  at  Woolsthorpe,  on  the  corner  of  the 
house  where  Isaac  dwelt.  If  so,  it  must  have  marked 
the  passage  of  every  sunny  hour  that  has  elapsed  since 
Isaac  Newton  was  a  boy.  It  marked  all  the  famous 
moments  of  his  life ;  it  marked  the  hour  of  his  death ; 
and  still  the  sunshine  creeps  slowly  over  it,  as  regu 
larly  as  when  Isaac  first  set  it  up. 

Yet  we  must  not  say  that  the  sundial  has  lasted 
longer  than  its  maker;  for  Isaac  Newton  will  exist 
long  after  the  dial  —  yea,  and  long  after  the  sun  it 
self  —  shall  have  crumbled  to  decay. 

Isaac  possessed  a  wonderful  faculty  of  acquiring 
knowledge  by  the  simplest  means.  For  instance,  what 
method  do  you  suppose  he  took  to  find  out  the  strength 
of  the  wind  ?  You  will  never  guess  how  the  boy  could 
compel  that  unseen,  inconstant,  and  ungovernable  won 
der,  the  wind,  to  tell  him  the  measure  of  its  strength. 
Yet  nothing  can  be  more  simple.  He  jumped  against 
the  wind ;  and  by  the  length  of  his  jump  he  could  cal 
culate  the  force  of  a  gentle  breeze,  a  brisk  gale,  or  a 
tempest.  Thus,  even  in  his  boyish  sports,  he  was  con 
tinually  searching  out  the  secrets  of  philosophy. 

Not  far  from  his  grandmother's  residence  there  was 
a  windmill  which  operated  on  a  new  plan.  Isaac  was 


160  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

in  the  habit  of  going  thither  frequently,  and  would 
spend  whole  hours  in  examining  its  various  parts. 
While  the  mill  was  at  rest  he  pried  into  its  internal 
machinery.  When  its  broad  sails  were  set  in  motion 
by  the  wind,  he  watched  the  process  by  which  the  mill 
stones  were  made  to  revolve  and  crush  the  grain  that 
was  put  into  the  hopper.  After  gaining  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  its  construction  he  was  observed  to  be 
unusually  busy  with  his  tools. 

It  was  not  long  before  his  grandmother  and  all  the 
neighborhood  knew  what  Isaac  had  been  about.  He 
had  constructed  a  model  of  the  windmill,  though  not 
so  large,  I  suppose,  as  one  of  the  box-traps  which  boys 
set  to  catch  squirrels,  yet  every  part  of  the  mill  and 
its  machinery  was  complete.  Its  little  sails  were  neatly 
made  of  linen,  and  whirled  round  very  swiftly  when 
the  mill  was  placed  in  a  draught  of  air.  Even  a  puff 
of  wind  from  Isaac's  mouth  or  from  a  pair  of  bellows 
was  sufficient  to  set  the  sails  in  motion.  And,  what 
was  most  curious,  if  a  handful  of  grains  of  wheat  were 
put  into  the  little  hopper,  they  would  soon  be  con 
verted  into  snow-white  flour. 

Isaac's  playmates  were  enchanted  with  his  new  wind 
mill.  They  thought  that  nothing  so  pretty  and  so  won 
derful  had  ever  been  seen  in  the  whole  world. 

"  But,  Isaac,"  said  one  of  them,  "  you  have  forgotten 
one  thing  that  belongs  to  a  mill." 

"  What  is  that  ?  "  asked  Isaac ;  for  he  supposed 
that,  from  the  roof  of  the  mill  to  its  foundation,  he 
had  forgotten  nothing. 

"  Why,  where  is  the  miller  ?  "  said  his  friend. 

"  That  is  true,  —  I  must  look  out  for  one,"  said 
Isaac ;  and  he  set  himself  to  consider  how  the  defi- 
ciency  should  be  supplied. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  161 

He  might  easily  have  made  the  miniature  figure  of 
a  man ;  but  then  it  would  not  have  been  able  to  move 
about  and  perform  the  duties  of  a  miller.  As  Captain 
Lemuel  Gulliver  had  not  yet  discovered  the  island  of 
Lilliput,  Isaac  did  not  know  that  there  were  little  men 
in  the  world  whose  size  was  just  suited  to  his  windmill. 
It  so  happened,  however,  that  a  mouse  had  just  been 
caught  in  the  trap ;  and,  as  no  other  miller  could  be 
found,  Mr.  Mouse  was  appointed  to  that  important 
office.  The  new  miller  made  a  very  respectable  ap 
pearance  in  his  dark-gray  coat.  To  be  sure,  he  had 
not  a  very  good  character  for  honesty,  and  was  sus 
pected  of  sometimes  stealing  a  portion  of  the  grain 
which  was  given  him  to  grind.  But  perhaps  some 
two-legged  millers  are  quite  as  dishonest  as  this  small 
quadruped. 

As  Isaac  grew  older,  it  was  found  that  he  had  far 
more  important  matters  in  his  mind  than  the  manu 
facture  of  toys  like  the  little  windmill.  All  day  long, 
if  left  to  himself,  he  was  either  absorbed  in  thought  or 
engaged  in  some  book  of  mathematics  or  natural  phi 
losophy.  At  night,  I  think  it  probable,  he  looked  up 
with  reverential  curiosity  to  the  stars,  and  wondered 
whether  they  were  worlds  like  our  own,  and  how  great 
was  their  distance  from  the  earth,  and  what  was  the 
power  that  kept  them  in  their  courses.  Perhaps,  even 
so  early  in  life,  Isaac  Newton  felt  a  presentiment  that 
he  should  be  able,  hereafter,  to  answer  all  these  ques 
tions. 

When  Isaac  was  fourteen  years  old,  his  mother's 
second  husband  being  now  dead,  she  wished  her. son  to 
leave  school  and  assist  her  in  managing  the  farm  at 
Woolsthorpe.  For  a  year  or  two,  therefore,  he  tried 
to  turn  his  attention  to  farming.  But  his  mind  was 

.VOL.    XII.  11 


162  BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

so  bent  on  becoming  a  scholar  that  his  mother  sent 
him  back  to  school,  and  afterwards  to  the  University 
of  Cambridge. 

I  have  now  finished  my  anecdotes  of  Isaac  Newton's 
boyhood.  My  story  would  be  far  too  long  were  I  to 
mention  all  the  splendid  discoveries  which  he  made 
after  he  came  to  be  a  man.  He  was  the  first  that 
found  out  the  nature  of  light ;  for,  before  his  day,  no 
body  could  tell  what  the  sunshine  was  composed  of. 
You  remember,  I  suppose,  the  story  of  an  apple's  fall 
ing  on  his  head,  and  thus  leading  him  to  discover  the 
force  of  gravitation,  which  keeps  the  heavenly  bodies 
in  their  courses.  When  he  had  once  got  hold  of  this 
idea,  he  never  permitted  his  mind  to  rest  until  he  had 
searched  out  all  the  laws  by  which  the  planets  are 
guided  through  the  sky.  This  he  did  as  thoroughly 
as  if  he  had  gone  up  among  the  stars  and  tracked 
them  in  their  orbits.  The  boy  had  found  out  the 
mechanism  of  a  windmill ;  the  man  explained  to  his 
fellow-men  the  mechanism  of  the  universe. 

While  making  these  researches  he  was  accustomed 
to  spend  night  after  night  in  a  lofty  tower,  gazing  at 
the  heavenly  bodies  through  a  telescope.  His  mind 
was  lifted  far  above  the  things  of  this  world.  He  may 
be  said,  indeed,  to  have  spent  the  greater  part  of  his 
life  in  worlds  that  lie  thousands  and  millions  of  miles 
away  ;  for  where  the  thoughts  and  the  heart  are,  there 
is  our  true  existence. 

Did  you  never  hear  the  story  of  Newton  and  his  lit 
tle  dog  Diamond  ?  One  day,  when  he  was  fifty  years 
old,  and  had  been  hard  at  work  more  than  twenty 
years  studying  the  theory  of  light,  he  went  out  of  his 
chamber,  leaving  his  little  dog  asleep  before  the  fire. 
On  the  table  lay  a  heap  of  manuscript  papers,  contain- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  163 

ing  all  the  discoveries  which  Newton  had  made  during 
those  twenty  years.  When  his  master  was  gone,  up 
rose  little  Diamond,  jumped  upon  the  table,  and  over 
threw  the  lighted  candle.  The  papers  immediately 
caught  fire. 

Just  as  the  destruction  was  completed  Newton 
opened  the  chamber  door,  and  perceived  that  the  la 
bors  of  twenty  years  were  reduced  to  a  heap  of  ashes. 
There  stood  little  Diamond,  the  author  of  all  the  mis 
chief.  Almost  any  other  man  would  have  sentenced 
the  dog  to  immediate  death.  But  Newton  patted  him 
on  the  head  with  his  usual  kindness,  although  grief 
was  at  his  heart. 

"  O  Diamond,  Diamond,"  exclaimed  he,  "  thou  lit 
tle  knowest  the  mischief  thou  hast  done  !  " 

This  incident  affected  his  health  and  spirits  for 
some  time  afterwards  ;  but,  from  his  conduct  towards 
the  little  dog,  you  may  judge  what  was  the  sweetness 
of  his  temper. 

Newton  lived  to  be  a  very  old  man,  and  acquired 
great  renown,  and  was  made  a  member  of  Parliament, 
and  received  the  honor  of  knighthood  from  the  king. 
But  he  cared  little  for  earthly  fame  and  honors,  and 
felt  no  pride  in  the  vastness  of  his  knowledge.  All 
that  he  had  learned  only  made  him  feel  how  little  he 
knew  in  comparison  to  what  remained  to  be  known. 

"  I  seem  to  myself  like  a  child,"  observed  he,  "  play 
ing  on  the  sea-shore,  and  picking  up  here  and  there  a 
curious  shell  or  a  pretty  pebble,  while  the  boundless 
ocean  of  Truth  lies  undiscovered  before  me." 

At  last,  in  1727,  when  he  was  forescore  and  five 
years  old,  Sir  Isaac  Newton  died, —  or  rather  he  ceased 
to  live  on  earth.  We  may  be  permitted  to  believe 
that  he  is  still  searching  out  the  infinite  wisdom  and 


164  BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

goodness  of  the  Creator  as  earnestly,  and  with  even 
more  success,  than  while  his  spirit  animated  a  mortal 
body.  He  has  left  a  fame  behind  him  which  will  be 
as  endurable  as  if  his  name  were  written  in  letters  of 
light  formed  by  the  stars  upon  the  midnight  sky. 

"  I  love  to  hear  about  mechanical  contrivances,  such 
as  the  water-clock  and  the  little  windmill,"  remarked 
George.  "  I  suppose,  if  Sir  Isaac  Newton  had  only 
thought  of  it,  he  might  have  found  out  the  steam- 
engine,  and  railroads,  and  all  the  other  famous  inven 
tions  that  have  come  into  use  since  his  day." 

"  Very  possibly  he  might,"  replied  Mr.  Temple ; 
"and  no  doubt  a  great  many  people  would  think  it 
more  useful  to  manufacture  steam-engines  than  to 
search  out  the  system  of  the  universe.  Other  great 
astronomers  besides  Newton  have  been  endowed  with 
mechanical  genius.  There  was  David  Rittenhouse,  an 
American,  —  he  made  a  perfect  little  water-mill  when 
he  was  only  seven  or  eight  years  old.  But  this  sort  of 
ingenuity  is  but  a  mere  trifle  in  comparison  with  the 
other  talents  of  such  men." 

"  It  must  have  been  beautiful,"  said  Edward,  "  to 
spend  whole  nights  in  a  high  tower  as  Newton  did, 
gazing  at  the  stars,  and  the  comets,  and  the  meteors. 
But  what  would  Newton  have  done  had  he  been  blind  ? 
or  if  his  eyes  had  been  no  better  than  mine  ?  " 

"  Why,  even  then,  my  dear  child,"  observed  Mrs. 
Temple,  "  he  would  have  found  out  some  way  of  en 
lightening  his  mind  and  of  elevating  his  soul.  But 
come  ;  little  Emily  is  waiting  to  bid  you  good-night. 
You  must  go  to  sleep  and  dream  of  seeing  all  our 
faces." 

"  But  how  sad  it  will  be  when  I  awake ! "  murmured 
Edward. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

IN  the  course  of  the  next  day  the  harmony  of  our 
little  family  was  disturbed  by  something  like  a  quarrel 
between  George  and  Edward. 

The  former,  though  he  loved  his  brother  dearly,  had 
found  it  quite  too  great  a  sacrifice  of  his  own  enjoy 
ments  to  spend  all  his  play-time  in  a  darkened  cham 
ber.  Edward,  on  the  other  hand,  was  inclined  to  be 
despotic.  He  felt  as  if  his  bandaged  eyes  entitled  him 
to  demand  that  everybody  who  enjoyed  the  blessing  of 
sight  should  contribute  to  his  comfort  and  amusement. 
He  therefore  insisted  that  George,  instead  of  going  out 
to  play  football,  should  join  with  himself  and  Emily 
in  a  game  of  questions  and  answers. 

George  resolutely  refused,  and  ran  out  of  the  house. 
He  did  not  revisit  Edward's  chamber  till  the  evening, 
when  he  stole  in,  looking  confused,  yet  somewhat  sul 
len,  and  sat  down  beside  his  father's  chair.  It  was 
evident,  by  a  motion  of  Edward's  head  and  a  slight 
trembling  of  his  lips,  that  he  was  aware  of  George's 
entrance,  though  his  footsteps  had  been  almost  inaudi 
ble.  Emily,  with  her  serious  and  earnest  little  face, 
looked  from  one  to  the  other,  as  if  she  longed  to  be  a 
messenger  of  peace  between  them. 

Mr.  Temple,  without  seeming  to  notice  any  of  these 
circumstances,  began  a  story. 


166  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

[BORN  1709.    DIED  1784.] 

"  Sam,"  said  Mr.  Michael  Johnson,  of  Lichfield,  one 
morning,  "  I  am  very  feeble  and  ailing  to-day.  You 
must  go  to  Uttoxeter  in  my  stead,  and  tend  the  book 
stall  in  the  market-place  there." 

This  was  spoken  above  a  hundred  years  ago  by  an 
elderly  man,  who  had  once  been  a  thriving  bookseller 
at  Lichfield,  in  England.  Being  now  in  reduced  cir 
cumstances,  he  was  forced  to  go  every  market-day  and 
sell  books  at  a  stall,  in  the  neighboring  village  of  Ut 
toxeter. 

His  son,  to  whom  Mr.  Johnson  spoke,  was  a  great 
boy,  of  very  singular  aspect.  He  had  an  intelligent 
face  ;  but  it  was  seamed  and  distorted  by  a  scrofulous 
humor,  which  affected  his  eyes  so  badly  that  sometimes 
he  was  almost  blind.  Owing  to  the  same  cause  his 
head  would  often  shake  with  a  tremulous  motion  as  if 
he  were  afflicted  with  the  palsy.  When  Sam  was  an 
infant,  the  famous  Queen  Anne  had  tried  to  cure  him 
of  this  disease  by  laying  her  royal  hands  upon  his 
head.  But  though  the  touch  of  the  king  or  queen  was 
supposed  to  be  a  certain  remedy  for  scrofula,  it  pro 
duced  no  good  effect  upon  Sam  Johnson. 

At  the  time  which  we  speak  of  the  poor  lad  was  not 
very  well  dressed,  and  wore  shoes  from  which  his  toes 
peeped  out ;  for  his  old  father  had  barely  the  means  of 
supporting  his  wife  and  children.  But,  poor  as  the 
family  were,  young  Sam  Johnson  had  as  much  pride 
as  any  nobleman's  son  in  England.  The  fact  was,  he 
felt  conscious  of  uncommon  sense  and  ability,  which, 
in  his  own  opinion,  entitled  him  to  great  respect  from 
the  world.  Perhaps  he  would  have  been  glad  if  grown 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  167 

people  had  treated  him  as  reverentially  as  his  school 
fellows  did.  Three  of  them  were  accustomed  to  come 
for  him  every  morning ;  and  while  he  sat  upon  the 
back  of  one,  the  two  others  supported  him  on  each 
side ;  and  thus  he  rode  to  school  in  triumph. 

Being  a  personage  of  so  much  importance,  Sam  could 
not  bear  the  idea  of  standing  all  day  in  Uttoxeter  mar 
ket  offering  books  to  ^the  rude  and  ignorant  country 
people.  Doubtless  he  felt  more  reluctant  on  account 
of  his  shabby  clothes,  and  the  disorder  of  his  eyes,  and 
the  tremulous  motion  of  his  head. 

When  Mr.  Michael  Johnson  spoke,  Sam  pouted  and 
made  an  indistinct  grumbling  in  his  throat ;  then  he 
looked  his  old  father  in  the  face,  and  answered  him 
loudly  and  deliberately. 

"  Sir,"  said  he,  "  I  will  not  go  to  Uttoxeter  mar 
ket!" 

Mr.  Johnson  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  the  lad's  ob 
stinacy  ever  since  his  birth ;  and  while  Sam  was 
younger,  the  old  gentleman  had  probably  used  the  rod 
whenever  occasion  seemed  to  require.  But  he  was 
now  too  feeble  and  too  much  out  of  spirits  to  contend 
with  this  stubborn  and  violent  -  tempered  boy.  He 
therefore  gave  up  the  point  at  once,  and  prepared 
to  go  to  Uttoxeter  himself. 

"  Well,  Sam,"  said  Mr.  Johnson,  as  he  took  his  hat 
and  staff,  "  if  for  the  sake  of  your  foolish  pride  you 
can  suffer  your  poor  sick  father  to  stand  all  day  in  the 
noise  and  confusion  of  the  market  when  he  ought  to 
be  in  his  bed,  I  have  no  more  to  say.  But  you  will 
think  of  this,  Sam,  when  I  am  dead  and  gone." 

So  the  poor  old  man  (perhaps  with  a  tear  in  his 
eye,  but  certainly  with  sorrow  in  his  heart)  set  forth 
towards  Uttoxeter.  The  gray-haired,  feeble,  melan- 


168  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

choly  Michael  Johnson  !  How  sad  a  thing  it  was  that 
he  should  be  forced  to  go,  in  his  sickness,  and  toil  for 
the  support  of  an  ungrateful  son  who  was  too  proud  to 
do  anything  for  his  father,  or  his  mother,  or  himself  ! 
Sam  looked  after  Mr.  Johnson  with  a  sullen  counte 
nance  till  he  was  out  of  sight. 

But  when  the  old  man's  figure,  as  he  went  stooping 
along  the  street,  was  no  more  to  be  seen,  the  boy's 
heart  began  to  smite  him.  He  had  a  vivid  imagina 
tion,  and  it  tormented  him  with  the  image  of  his 
father  standing  in  the  market-place  of  Uttoxeter  and 
offering  his  books  to  the  noisy  crowd  around  him. 
Sam  seemed  to  behold  him  arranging  his  literary  mer 
chandise  upon  the  stall  in  such  a  way  as  was  best  cal 
culated  to  attract  notice.  Here  was  Addison's  "  Spec 
tator,"  a  long  row  of  little  volumes  ;  here  was  Pope's 
translation  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey ;  here  were  Dry- 
den's  poems,  or  those  of  Prior.  Here,  likewise,  were 
"  Gulliver's  Travels,"  and  a  variety  of  little  gilt-cov 
ered  children's  books,  such  as  "  Tom  Thumb,  "  "  Jack 
the  Giant  Queller,"  "  Mother  Goose's  Melodies,"  ami 
others  which  our  great-grandparents  used  to  read  in 
their  childhood.  And  here  were  sermons  for  the 
pious,  and  pamphlets  for  the  politicians,  and  ballads, 
some  merry  and  some  dismal  ones,  for  the  country 
people  to  sing. 

Sam,  in  imagination,  saw  his  father  offer  these 
books,  pamphlets,  and  ballads,  now  to  the  rude  yeo 
men,  who  perhaps  could  not  read  a  word ;  now  to  the 
country  squires,  who  cared  for  nothing  but  to  hunt 
hares  and  foxes  ;  now  to  the  children,  who  chose  to 
spend  their  coppers  for  sugar -plums  or  gingerbread 
rather  than  for  picture-books.  And  if  Mr.  Johnson 
should  sell  a  book  to  man,  woman,  or  child,  it  would 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  169 

cost  him  an  hour's  talk  to  get  a  profit  of  only  six 
pence. 

"My  poor  father! "  thought  Sam  to  himself.  "  How 
his  head  will  ache  I  and  how  heavy  his  heart  will  be  ! 
I  am  almost  sorry  that  I  did  not  do  as  he  bade  me." 

Then  the  boy  went  to  his  mother,  who  was  busy 
about  the  house.  She  did  not  know  of  what  had  passed 
between  Mr.  Johnson  and  Sam. 

"  Mother,"  said  he,  "  did  you  think  father  seemed 
very  ill  to-day  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Sam,"  answered  his  mother,  turning  with  a 
flushed  face  from  the  fire,  where  she  was  cooking  their 
scanty  dinner.  "  Your  father  did  look  very  ill ;  and 
it  is  a  pity  he  did  not  send  you  to  Uttoxeter  in  his 
stead.  You  are  a  great  boy  now,  and  would  rejoice, 
I  am  sure,  to  do  something  for  your  poor  father,  who 
has  done  so  much  for  you." 

The  lad  made  no  reply.  But  again  his  imagination 
set  to  work  and  conjured  up  another  picture  of  poor 
Michael  Johnson.  He  was  standing  in  the  hot  sun 
shine  of  the  market-place,  and  looking  so  weary,  sick, 
and  disconsolate,  that  the  eyes  of  all  the  crowd  were 
drawn  to  him.  "  Had  this  old  man  no  son,"  the  peo 
ple  would  say  among  themselves,  "  who  might  have 
taken  his  place  at  the  book-stall  while  the  father  kept 
his  bed  ?  "  And  perhaps,  —  but  this  was  a  terrible 
thought  for  Sam !  —  perhaps  his  father  would  faint 
away  and  fall  down  in  the  market-place,  with  his  gray 
hair  in  the  dust  and  his  venerable  face  as  deathlike  as 
that  of  a  corpse.  And  there  would  be  the  by-standers 
gazing  earnestly  at  Mr.  Johnson  and  whispering,  "  Is 
he  dead?  Is  he  dead?" 

And  Sam  shuddered  as  he  repeated  to  himself,  "  Is 
he  dead?" 


170  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

"Oh,  I  have  been  a  cruel  son!"  thought  he  within 
his  own  heart.  "God  forgive  me !  God  forgive  me! " 

But  God  could  not  yet  forgive  him ;  for  he  was  not 
truly  penitent.  Had  he  been  so,  he  would  have  has 
tened  away  that  very  moment  to  Uttoxeter,  and  have 
fallen  at  his  father's  feet,  even  in  the  midst  of  the 
crowded  market-place.  There  he  would  have  con 
fessed  his  fault,  and  besought  Mr.  Johnson  to  go  home 
and  leave  the  rest  of  the  day's  work  to  him.  But  such 
was  Sam's  pride  and  natural  stubbornness  that  he 
could  not  bring  himself  to  this  humiliation.  Yet  he 
ought  to  have  done  so,  for  his  own  sake,  for  his  father's 
sake,  and  for  God's  sake. 

After  sunset  old  Michael  Johnson  came  slowly 
home  and  sat  down  in  his  customary  chair.  He  said 
nothing  to  Sam  ;  nor  do  I  know  that  a  single  word 
ever  passed  between  them  on  the  subject  of  the  son's 
disobedience.  In  a  few  years  his  father  died,  and  left 
Sam  to  fight  his  way  through  the  world  by  himself. 
It  would  make  our  story  much  too  long  were  I  to  tell 
you  even  a  few  of  the  remarkable  events  of  Sam's  life. 
Moreover,  there  is  the  less  need  of  this,  because  many 
books  have  been  written  about  that  poor  boy,  and  the 
fame  that  he  acquired,  and  all  that  he  did  or  talked  of 
doing  after  he  came  to  be  a  man. 

But  one  thing  I  must  not  neglect  to  say.  From  his 
boyhood  upward  until  the  latest  day  of  his  life  he 
never  forgot  the  story  of  Uttoxeter  market.  Often 
when  he  was  a  scholar  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  or 
master  of  an  academy  at  Edial,  or  a  writer  for  the 
London  booksellers,  —  in  all  his  poverty  and  toil  and 
in  all  his  success,  —  while  he  was  walking  the  streets 
without  a  shilling  to  buy  food,  or  when  the  greatest 
men  of  England  were  proud  to  feast  him  at  their 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  171 

table,  —  still  that  heavy  and  remorseful  thought  came 
back  to  him, "  I  was  cruel  to  my  poor  father  in  his  ill 
ness!  "  Many  and  many  a  time,  awake  or  in  his 
dreams,  he  seemed  to  see  old  Michael  Johnson  stand 
ing  in  the  dust  and  confusion  of  the  market-place,  and 
pressing  his  withered  hand  to  his  forehead  as  if  it 
ached. 

Alas !  my  dear  children,  it  is  a  sad  thing  to  have 
such  a  thought  as  this  to  bear  us  company  through 
life. 

Though  the  story  was  but  half  finished,  yet,  as  it 
was  longer  than  usual,  Mr.  Temple  here  made  a  short 
pause.  He  perceived  that  Emily  was  in  tears,  and 
Edward  turned  his  half -veiled  face  towards  the  speaker 
with  an  air  of  great  earnestness  and  interest.  As  for 
George,  he  had  withdrawn  into  the  dusky  shadow  be 
hind  his  father's  chair. 


CHAPTER  V. 

IN  a  few  moments  Mr.  Temple  resumed  the  story, 
as  follows :  — 

SAMUEL   JOHNSON. 

[CONTINUED.] 

Well,  my  children,  fifty  years  had  passed  away  since 
young  Sam  Johnson  had  shown  himself  so  hard-hearted 
towards  his  father.  It  was  now  market-day  in  the  vil 
lage  of  Uttoxeter. 

In  the  street  of  the  village  you  might  see  cattle- 
dealers  with  cows  and  oxen  for  sale,  and  pig-drovers 
with  herds  of  squeaking  swine,  and  farmers  with  cart 
loads  of  cabbages,  turnips,  onions,  and  all  other  prod 
uce  of  the  soil.  Now  and  then  a  farmer's  red-faced 
wife  trotted  along  on  horseback,  with  butter  and 
cheese  in  two  large  panniers.  The  people  of  the  vil 
lage,  with  country  squires,  and  other  visitors  from  the 
neighborhood,  walked  hither  and  thither,  trading, 
jesting,  quarrelling,  and  making  just  such  a  bustle  as 
their  fathers  and  grandfathers  had  made  half  a  cen 
tury  before. 

In  one  part  of  the  street  there  was  a  puppet-show, 
with  a  ridiculous  merry-andrew,  who  kept  both  grown 
people  and  children  in  a  roar  of  laughter.  On  the  op 
posite  side  was  the  old  stone  church  of  Uttoxeter,  with 
ivy  climbing  up  its  walls  and  partly  obscuring  its 
Gothic  windows. 

There  was  a  clock  in  the  gray  tower  of  the  ancient 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  173 

church,  and  the  hands  on  the  dial-plate  had  now  al 
most  reached  the  hour  of  noon.  At  this  busiest  hour 
of  the  market  a  strange  old  gentleman  was  seen  mak 
ing  his  way  among  the  crowd.  He  was  very  tall  and 
bulky,  and  wore  a  brown  coat  and  small-clothes,  with 
black  worsted  stockings  and  buckled  shoes.  On  his 
head  was  a  three-cornered  hat,  beneath  which  a  bushy 
gray  wig  thrust  itself  out,  all  in  disorder.  The  old 
gentleman  elbowed  the  people  aside,  and  forced  his 
way  through  the  midst  of  them  with  a  singular  kind  of 
gait,  rolling  his  body  hither  and  thither,  so  that  he 
needed  twice  as  much  room  as  any  other  person  there. 

"  Make  way,  sir !  "  he  would  cry  out,  in  a  loud, 
harsh  voice,  when  somebody  happened  to  interrupt  his 
progress.  "  Sir,  you  intrude  your  person  into  the  pub 
lic  thoroughfare !  " 

"  What  a  queer  old  fellow  this  is !  "  muttered  the 
people  among  themselves,  hardly  knowing  whether  to 
laugh  or  to  be  angry. 

But  when  they  looked  into  the  venerable  stranger's 
face,  not  the  most  thoughtless  among  them  dared  to 
offer  him  the  least  impertinence.  Though  his  features 
were  scarred  and  distorted  with  the  scrofula,  and 
though  his  eyes  were  dim  and  bleared,  yet  there  was 
something  of  authority  and  wisdom  in  his  look,  which 
impressed  them  all  with  awe.  So  they  stood  aside  to 
let  him  pass  ;  and  the  old  gentleman  made  his  way 
across  the  market-place,  and  paused  near  the  corner  of 
the  ivy-mantled  church.  Just  as  he  reached  it  the 
clock  struck  twelve. 

On  the  very  spot  of  ground  where  the  stranger  now 
stood  some  aged  people  remembered  that  old  Michael 
Johnson  had  formerly  kept  his  book-stall.  The  little 
children  who  had  once  bought  picture-books  of  him 
were  grandfathers  now. 


174  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

"  Yes ;  here  is  the  very  spot  I  "  muttered  the  old 
gentleman  to  himself. 

There  this  unknown  personage  took  his  stand  and 
removed  the  three-cornered  hat  from  his  head.  It  was 
the  busiest  hour  of  the  day.  What  with  the  hum  of 
human  voices,  the  lowing  of  cattle,  the  squeaking  of 
pigs,  and  the  laughter  caused  by  the  merry-andrew, 
the  market-place  was  in  very  great  confusion.  But  the 
stranger  seemed  not  to  notice  it  any  more  than  if  the 
silence  of  a  desert  were  around  him.  He  was  rapt  in 
his  own  thoughts.  Sometimes  he  raised  his  furrowed 
brow  to  Heaven,  as  if  in  prayer ;  sometimes  he  bent 
his  head,  as  if  an  insupportable  weight  of  sorrow  were 
upon  him.  It  increased  the  awfulness  of  his  aspect 
that  there  was  a  motion  of  his  head  and  an  almost 
continual  tremor  throughout  his  frame,  with  singular 
twitchings  and  contortions  of  his  features. 

The  hot  sun  blazed  upon  his  unprotected  head ;  but 
he  seemed  not  to  feel  its  fervor.  A  dark  cloud  swept 
across  the  sky  and  rain-drops  pattered  into  the  market 
place  ;  but  the  stranger  heeded  not  the  shower.  The 
people  began  to  gaze  at  the  mysterious  old  gentleman 
with  superstitious  fear  and  wonder.  Who  could  he 
be  ?  Whence  did  he  come  ?  Wherefore  was  he  stand 
ing  bareheaded  in  the  market-place?  Even  the  school 
boys  left  the  merry-andrew  and  came  to  gaze,  with 
wide-open  eyes,  at  this  tall,  strange-looking  old  man. 

There  was  a  cattle-drover  in  the  village  who  had 
recently  made  a  journey  to  the  Smithfield  Market, 
in  London.  No  sooner  had  this  man  thrust  his  way 
through  the  throng  and  taken  a  look  at  the  unknown 
personage,  than  he  whispered  to  one  of  his  acquain 
tances,  — 

"  I  say,  Neighbor  Hutchins,  would  ye  like  to  know 
who  this  old  gentleman  is  ?  " 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  175 

"Ay,  that  I  would,"  replied  Neighbor  Hutchins, 
"  for  a  queerer  chap  I  never  saw  in  my  life.  Some 
how  it  makes  me  feel  small  to  look  at  him.  He's 
more  than  a  common  man." 

"  You  may  well  say  so,"  answered  the  cattle-drover. 
"Why,  that's  the  famous  Doctor  Samuel  Johnson, 
who  they  say  is  the  greatest  and  learnedest  man  in 
England.  I  saw  him  in  London  streets,  walking  with 
one  Mr.  Boswell." 

Yes ;  the  poor  boy,  the  friendless  Sam,  with  whom 
we  began  our  story,  had  become  the  famous  Doctor 
Samuel  Johnson.  He  was  universally  acknowledged 
as  the  wisest  man  and  greatest  writer  in  all  England. 
He  had  given  shape  and  permanence  to  his  native  lan 
guage  by  his  Dictionary.  Thousands  upon  thousands 
of  people  had  read  his  "Idler,"  his  "Eambler,"  and  his 
"  Rasselas."  Noble  and  wealthy  men  and  beautiful 
ladies  deemed  it  their  highest  privilege  to  be  his  com 
panions.  Even  the  King  of  Great  Britain  had  sought 
his  acquaintance,  and  told  him  what  an  honor  he  con 
sidered  it  that  such  a  man  had  been  born  in  his  domin 
ions.  He  was  now  at  the  summit  of  literary  renown. 

But  all  his  fame  could  not  extinguish  the  bitter 
remembrance  which  had  tormented  him  through  life. 
Never,  never  had  he  forgotten  his  father's  sorrowful 
and  upbraiding  look.  Never,  though  the  old  man's 
troubles  had  been  over  so  many  years,  had  he  forgiven 
himself  for  inflicting  such  a  pang  upon  his  heart. 
And  now,  in  his  old  age,  he  had  come  hither  to  do 
penance,  by  standing  at  noonday,  in  the  market-place 
of  Uttoxeter,  on  the  very  spot  where  Michael  Johnson 
had  once  kept  his  book-stall.  The  aged  and  illustri 
ous  man  had  done  what  the  poor  boy  refused  to  do. 
By  thus  expressing  his  deep  repentance  and  humilia- 


176  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

tion  of  heart,  lie  hoped  to  gain  peace  of  conscience  and 
the  forgiveness  of  God. 

My  dear  children,  if  you  have  grieved  (I  will  not 
say  your  parents,  but  if  you  have  grieved)  the  heart 
of  any  human  being  who  has  a  claim  upon  your  love, 
then  think  of  Samuel  Johnson's  penance.  Will  it  not 
be  better  to  redeem  the  error  now  than  to  endure  the 
agony  of  remorse  for  fifty  years?  Would  you  not 
rather  say  to  a  brother,  "  I  have  erred  ;  forgive  me  !  " 
than  perhaps  to  go  hereafter  and  shed  bitter  tears  upon 
his  grave  ? 

Hardly  was  the  story  concluded  when  George  has 
tily  arose,  and  Edward  likewise,  stretching  forth  his 
hands  into  the  darkness  that  surrounded  him  to  find 
his  brother.  Both  accused  themselves  of  unkindness ; 
each  besought  the  other's  forgiveness ;  and  having 
done  so,  the  trouble  of  their  hearts  vanished  away  like 
a  dream. 

"  I  am  glad !  I  am  so  glad  !  "  said  Emily,  in  a  low, 
earnest  voice.  "  Now  I  shall  sleep  quietly  to-night." 

"  My  sweet  child,"  thought  Mrs.  Temple  as  she 
kissed  her,  "  mayest  thou  never  know  how  much  strife 
there  is  on  earth  !  It  would  cost  thee  many  a  night's 
rest." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ABOUT  this  period  Mr.  Temple  found  it  necessary 
to  take  a  journey,  which  interrupted  the  series  of 
"Biographical  Stories"  for  several  evenings.  In  the 
interval,  Edward  practised  various  methods  of  employ 
ing  and  amusing  his  mind. 

Sometimes  he  meditated  upon  beautiful  objects  which 
he  had  formerly  seen,  until  the  intensity  of  his  recol 
lection  seemed  to  restore  him  the  gift  of  sight  and 
place  everything  anew  before  his  eyes.  Sometimes  he 
repeated  verses  of  poetry  which  he  did  not  know  to  be 
in  his  memory  until  he  found  them  there  just  at  the 
time  of  need.  Sometimes  he  attempted  to  solve  arith 
metical  questions  which  had  perplexed  him  while  at 
school. 

Then,  with  his  mother's  assistance,  he  learned  the 
letters  of  the  string  alphabet,  which  is  used  in  some  of 
the  institutions  for  the  blind  in  Europe.  When  one 
of  his  friends  gave  him  a  leaf  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel, 
printed  in  embossed  characters,  he  endeavored  to  read 
it  by  passing  his  fingers  over  the  letters  as  blind  chil 
dren  do. 

His  brother  George  was  now  very  kind,  and  spent 
so  much  time  in  the  darkened  chamber  that  Edward 
often  insisted  upon  his  going  out  to  play.  George 
told  him  all  about  the  affairs  at  school,  and  related 
many  amusing  incidents  that  happened  among  his  com 
rades,  and  informed  him  what  sports  were  now  in  fash 
ion,  and  whose  kite  soared  the  highest,  and  whose  lit- 

VOL.  xii.  12 


178  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

tie  ship  sailed  fleetest  on  the  Frog  Pond.  As  for 
Emily,  she  repeated  stories  which  she  had  learned 
from  a  new  book  called  "The  Flower  People,"  in 
which  the  snow-drops,  the  violets,  the  columbines,  the 
roses,  and  all  that  lovely  tribe  are  represented  as  tell 
ing  their  secrets  to  a  little  girl.  The  flowers  talked  , 
sweetly,  as  flowers  should;  and  Edward  almost  fan 
cied  that  he  could  behold  their  bloom  and  smell  their 
fragrant  breath. 

Thus,  in  one  way  or  another,  the  dark  days  of  Ed 
ward's  confinement  passed  not  unhappily.  In  due 
time  his  father  returned  ;  and  the  next  evening,  when 
the  family  were  assembled,  he  began  a  story. 

"I  must  first  observe,  children,"  said  he,  "that 
some  writers  deny  the  truth  of  the  incident  which  I  am 
about  to  relate  to  you.  There  certainly  is  but  little 
evidence  in  favor  of  it.  Other  respectable  writers, 
however,  tell  it  for  a  fact ;  and,  at  all  events,  it  fs  an 
interesting  story,  and  has  an  excellent  moral." 

So  Mr.  Temple  proceeded  to  talk  about  the  early 
days  of 

OLIVER   CROMWELL. 

[BORN  1599.      DIED  1658.] 

Not  long  after  King  James  I.  took  the  place  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  on  the  throne  of  England,  there  lived 
an  English  knight  at  a  place  called  Hinchinbrooke. 
His  name  was  Sir  Oliver  Cromwell.  He  spent  his 
life,  I  suppose,  pretty  much  like  other  English  knights 
and  squires  in  those  days,  hunting  hares  and  foxes  and 
drinking  large  quantities  of  ale  and  wine.  The  old 
house  in  which  he  dwelt  had  been  occupied  by  his  an 
cestors  before  him  for  a  good  many  years.  In  it  there 
was  a  great  hall,  hung  round  with  coats  of  arms  and 
helmets,  cuirasses  and  swords,  which  his  forefathers 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  179 

had  used  in  battle,  and  with  horns  of  deer  and  tails  of 
foxes  which  they  or  Sir  Oliver  himself  had  killed  in 
the  chase. 

This  Sir  Oliver  Cromwell  had  a  nephew,  who  had 
been  called  Oliver,  after  himself,  but  who  was  gener 
ally  known  in  the  family  by  the  name  of  little  Noll. 
His  father  was  a  younger  brother  of  Sir  Oliver.  The 
child  was  often  sent  to  visit  his  uncle,  who  probably 
found  him  a  troublesome  little  fellow  to  take  care  of. 
He  was  forever  in  mischief,  and  always  running  into 
some  danger  or  other,  from  which  he  seemed  to  escape 
only  by  miracle. 

Even  while  he  was  an  infant  in  the  cradle  a  strange 
accident  had  befallen  him.  A  huge  ape,  which  was 
kept  in  the  family,  snatched  up  little  Noll  in  his  fore 
paws  and  clambered  with  him  to  the  roof  of  the  house. 
There  this  ugly  beast  sat  grinning  at  the  affrighted 
spectators,  as  if  it  had  done  the  most  praiseworthy 
thing  imaginable.  Fortunately,  however,  he  brought 
the  child  safe  down  again  ;  and  the  event  was  after 
wards  considered  an  omen  that  Noll  would  reach  a 
very  elevated  station  in  the  world. 

One  morning,  when  Noll  was  five  or  six  years  old,  a 
royal  messenger  arrived  at  Hinchinbrooke  with  tidings 
that  King  James  was  coming  to  dine  with  Sir  Oliver 
Cromwell.  This  was  a  high  honor,  to  be  sure,  but  a 
very  great  trouble;  for  all  the  lords  and  ladies,  knights, 
squires,  guards,  and  yeomen,  who  waited  on  the  king, 
were  to  be  feasted  as  well  as  himself ;  and  more  provi 
sions  would  be  eaten  and  more  wine  drunk  in  that  one 
day  than  generally  in  a  month.  However,  Sir  Oliver 
expressed  much  thankfulness  for  the  king's  intended 
visit,  and  ordered  his  butler  and  cook  to  make  the  best 
preparations  in  their  power.  So  a  great  fire  was  kin- 


180  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

died  in  the  kitchen ;  and  the  neighbors  knew,  by  the 
smoke  which  poured  out  of  the  chimney,  that  boiling, 
baking,  stewing,  roasting,  and  frying  were  going  on 
merrily. 

By  and  by  the  sound  of  trumpets  was  heard  ap 
proaching  nearer  and  nearer ;  a  heavy,  old-fashioned 
coach,  surrounded  by  guards  on  horseback,  drove  up 
to  the  house.  Sir  Oliver,  with  his  hat  in  his  hand, 
stood  at  the  gate  to  receive  the  king.  His  Majesty 
was  dressed  in  a  suit  of  green  not  very  new :  he  had  a 
feather  in  his  hat,  and  a  triple  ruff  round  his  neck,  and 
over  his  shoulder  was  slung  a  hunting-horn  instead  of 
a  sword.  Altogether  he  had  not  the  most  dignified 
aspect  in  the  world ;  but  the  spectators  gazed  at  him 
as  if  there  was  something  superhuman  and  divine  in 
his  person.  They  even  shaded  their  eyes  with  their 
hands,  as  if  they  were  dazzled  by  the  glory  of  his  coun 
tenance. 

"How  are  ye,  man?"  cried  King  James,  speaking 
in  a  Scotch  accent ;  for  Scotland  was  his  native  coun 
try.  "  By  my  crown,  Sir  Oliver,  but  I  am  glad  to  see 
ye!" 

The  good  knight  thanked  the  king ;  at  the  same 
time  kneeling  down  while  his  Majesty  alighted.  When 
King  James  stood  on  the  ground,  he  directed  Sir  Oli 
ver's  attention  to  a  little  boy  who  had  come  with  him 
in  the  coach.  He  was  six  or  seven  years  old,  and  wore 
a  hat  and  feather,  and  was  more  richly  dressed  than 
the  king  himself.  Though  by  no  means  an  ill-looking 
child,  he  seemed  shy,  or  even  sulky ;  and  his  cheeks 
were  rather  pale,  as  if  he  had  been  kept  moping 
within  doors,  instead  of  being  sent  out  to  play  in  the 
sun  and  wind. 

"  I  have  brought  my  son  Charlie  to  see  ye,"  said  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  181 

king.  "  I  hope,  Sir  Oliver,  ye  have  a  son  of  your  own 
to  be  his  playmate." 

Sir  Oliver  Cromwell  made  a  reverential  bow  to  the 
little  prince,  whom  one  of  the  attendants  had  now 
taken  out  of  the  coach.  It  was  wonderful  to  see  how 
all  the  spectators,  even  the  aged  men  with  their  gray 
beards,  humbled  themselves  before  this  child.  They 
bent  their  bodies  till  their  beards  almost  swept  the 
dust.  They  looked  as  if  they  were  ready  to  kneel 
down  and  worship  him. 

The  poor  little  prince !  From  his  earliest  infancy 
not  a  soul  had  dared  to  contradict  him;  everybody 
around  him  had  acted  as  if  he  were  a  superior  being ; 
so  that,  of  course,  he  had  imbibed  the  same  opinion  of 
himself.  lie  naturally  supposed  that  the  whole  king 
dom  of  Great  Britain  and  all  its  inhabitants  had  been 
created  solely  for  his  benefit  and  amusement.  This 
was  a  sad  mistake  ;  and  it  cost  him  dear  enough  after 
he  had  ascended  his  father's  throne. 

44  What  a  noble  little  prince  he  is !  "  exclaimed  Sir 
Oliver,  lifting  his  hands  in  admiration.  "  No,  please 
your  Majesty,  I  have  no  son  to  be  the  playmate  of  his 
royal  highness  ;  but  there  is  a  nephew  of  mine  some 
where  about  the  house.  He  is  near  the  prince's  age, 
and  will  be  but  too  happy  to  wait  upon  his  royal  high 
ness." 

"  Send  for  him,  man !  send  for  him  !  "  said  the  king. 

But,  as  it  happened,  there  was  no  need  of  sending 
for  Master  Noll.  While  King  James  was  speaking,  a 
rugged,  bold-faced,  sturdy  little  urchin  thrust  himself 
through  the  throng  of  courtiers  and  attendants,  and 
greeted  the  prince  with  a  broad  stare.  His  doublet 
and  hose  (which  had  been  put  on  new  and  clean  in 
honor  of  the  king's  visit)  were  already  soiled  and  torn 


182  BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

with  the  rough  play  in  which  he  had  spent  the  morn 
ing.  He  looked  no  more  abashed  than  if  King  James 
were  his  uncle  and  the  prince  one  of  his  customary 
playfellows. 

This  was  little  Noll  himself. 

"  Here,  please  your  majesty,  is  my  nephew,"  said 
Sir  Oliver,  somewhat  ashamed  of  Noll's  appearance 
and  demeanor.  "  Oliver,  make  your  obeisance  to  the 
king's  majesty." 

The  boy  made  a  pretty  respectful  obeisance  to  the 
king ;  for  in  those  days  children  were  taught  to  pay 
reverence  to  their  elders.  King  James,  who  prided 
himself  greatly  on  his  scholarship,  asked  Noll  a  few 
questions  in  the  Latin  grammar,  and  then  introduced 
him  to  his  son.  The  little  prince,  in  a  very  grave  and 
dignified  manner,  extended  his  hand,  not  for  Noll  to 
shake,  but  that  he  might  kneel  down  and  kiss  it. 

"  Nephew,"  said  Sir  Oliver,  "  pay  your  duty  to  the 
prince." 

"  I  owe  him  no  duty,"  cried  Noll,  thrusting  aside 
the  prince's  hand  with  a  rude  laugh.  "  Why  should  I 
kiss  that  boy's  hand  ?  " 

All  the  courtiers  were  amazed  and  confounded,  and 
Sir  Oliver  the  most  of  all.  But  the  king  laughed 
heartily,  saying  that  little  Noll  had  a  stubborn  Eng 
lish  spirit,  and  that  it  was  well  for  his  son  to  learn  be 
times  what  sort  of  a  people  he  was  to  rule  over. 

So  King  James  and  his  train  entered  the  house  ; 
and  the  prince,  with  Noll  and  some  other  children,  was 
sent  to  play  in  a  separate  room  while  his  Majesty  was 
at  dinner.  The  young  people  soon  became  acquainted  ; 
for  boys,  whether  the  sons  of  monarchs  or  of  peasants, 
all  like  play,  and  are  pleased  with  one  another's  so 
ciety.  What  games  they  diverted  themselves  with  I 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  183 

cannot  tell.  Perhaps  they  played  at  ball,  perhaps  at 
blind-man's-buff,  perhaps  at  leap-frog,  perhaps  at  pris 
on-bars.  Such  games  have  been  in  use  for  hundreds 
of  years ;  and  princes  as  well  as  poor  children  have 
spent  some  of  their  happiest  hours  in  playing  at  them. 

Meanwhile  King  James  and  his  nobles  were  feasting 
with  Sir  Oliver  in  the  great  hall.  The  king  sat  in 
a  gilded  chair,  under  a  canopy,  at  the  head  of  a  long 
table.  Whenever  any  of  tlje  company  addressed  him, 
it  was  with  the  deepest  reverence.  If  the  attendants 
offered  him  wine,  or  the  various  delicacies  of  the  festi 
val,  it  was  upon  their  bended  knees.  You  would  have 
thought,  by  these  tokens  of  worship,  that  the  monarch 
was  a  supernatural  being ;  only  he  seemed  to  have 
quite  as  much  need  of  those  vulgar  matters,  food  and 
drink,  as  any  other  person  at  the  table.  But  fate  had 
ordained  that  good  King  James  should  not  finish  his 
dinner  in  peace. 

All  of  a  sudden  there  arose  a  terrible  uproar  in  the 
room  where  the  children  were  at  play.  Angry  shouts 
and  shrill  cries  of  alarm  were  mixed  up  together ; 
while  the  voices  of  elder  persons  were  likewise  heard, 
trying  to  restore  order  among  the  children.  The  king 
and  everybody  else  at  table  looked  aghast  ;  for  per 
haps  the  tumult  made  them  think  that  a  general  re 
bellion  had  broken  out. 

"  Mercy  on  us  !  "  muttered  Sir  Oliver ;  "  that  grace 
less  nephew  of  mine  is  in  some  mischief  or  other.  The 
naughty  little  whelp !  " 

Getting  up  from  table,  he  ran  to  see  what  was  the 
matter,  followed  by  many  of  the  guests,  and  the  king 
among  them.  They  all  crowded  to  the  door  of  the 
playroom. 

On  looking  in,  they  beheld  the  little  Prince  Charles, 


184  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

with  his  rich  dress  all  torn  and  covered  with  the  dust 
of  the  floor.  His  royal  blood  was  streaming  from  his 
nose  in  great  abundance.  He  gazed  at  Noll  with  a 
mixture  of  rage  and  affright,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
puzzled  expression,  as  if  he  could  not  understand  how 
any  mortal  boy  should  dare  to  give  him  a  beating.  As 
for  Noll,  there  stood  his  sturdy  little  figure,  bold  as  a 
lion,  looking  as  if  he  were  ready  to  fight,  not  only  the 
prince,  but  the  king  and  kingdom  too. 

"  You  little  villain  !  "  cried  his  uncle.  "  What  have 
you  been  about  ?  Down  011  your  knees,  this  instant, 
and  ask  the  prince's  pardon.  How  dare  you  lay  your 
hands  on  the  king's  majesty's  royal  son  ?  " 

"  He  struck  me  first,"  grumbled  the  valiant  little 
Noll ;  "  and  I  've  only  given  him  his  due." 

Sir  Oliver  and  the  guests  lifted  up  their  hands  in 
astonishment  and  horror.  No  punishment  seemed  se 
vere  enough  for  this  wicked  little  varlet,  who  had 
dared  to  resent  a  blow  from  the  king's  own  son.  Some 
of  the  courtiers  were  of  opinion  that  Noll  should  be 
sent  prisoner  to  the  Tower  of  London  and  brought  to 
trial  for  high  treason.  Others,  in  their  great  zeal  for 
the  king's  service,  were  about  to  lay  hands  on  the  boy 
and  chastise  him  in  the  royal  presence. 

But  King  James,  who  sometimes  showed  a  good  deal 
of  sagacity,  ordered  them  to  desist. 

"  Thou  art  a  bold  boy,"  said  he,  looking  fixedly  at 
little  Noll;  "and,  if  thou  live  to  be  a  man,  my  son 
Charlie  would  do  wisely  to  be  friends  with  thee." 

"  I  never  will !  "  cried  the  little  prince,  stamping  his 
foot. 

"  Peace,  Charlie,  peace !  "  said  the  king ;  then  ad 
dressing  Sir  Oliver  and  the  attendants,  "  Harm  not 

O 

the  urchin ;  for  he  has  taught  my  son  a  good  lesson, 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  185 

if  Heaven  do  but  give  him  grace  to  profit  by  it.  Here 
after,  should  he  be  tempted  to  tyrannize  over  the  stub 
born  race  of  Englishmen,  let  him  remember  little  Noll 
Cromwell  and  his  own  bloody  nose." 

So  the  king  finished  his  dinner  and  departed  ;  and 
for  many  a  long  year  the  childish  quarrel  between 
Prince  Charles  and  Noll  Cromwell  was  forgotten. 
The  prince,  indeed,  might  have  lived  a  happier  life, 
and  have  met  a  more  peaceful  death,  had  he  remem 
bered  that  quarrel  and  the  moral  which  his  father 
drew  from  it.  But  when  old  King  James  was  dead, 
and  Charles  sat  upon  his  throne,  he  seemed  to  forget 
that  he  was  but  a  man,  and  that  his  meanest  subjects 
were  men  as  well  as  he.  He  wished  to  have  the  prop 
erty  and  lives  of  the  people  of  England  entirely  at  his 
own  disposal.  But  the  Puritans,  and  all  who  loved 
liberty,  rose  against  him  and  beat  him  in  many  bat 
tles,  and  pulled  him  down  from  his  throne. 

Throughout  this  war  between  the  king  and  nobles  on 
one  side  and  the  people  of  England  on  the  other,  there 
was  a  famous  leader,  who  did  more  towards  the  ruin 
of  royal  authority  than  all  the  rest.  The  contest 
seemed  like  a  wrestling-match  between  King  Charles 
and  this  strong  man.  And  the  king  was  overthrown. 
When  the  discrowned  monarch  was  brought  to  trial, 
that  warlike  leader  sat  in  the  judgment  hall,  Many 
judges  were  present  besides  himself  ;  but  he  alone  had 
the  power  to  save  King  Charles  or  to  doom  him  to  the 
scaffold.  After  sentence  was  pronounced,  this  victori 
ous  general  was  entreated  by  his  own  children,  on  their 
knees,  to  rescue  his  Majesty  from  death. 

"No!"  said  he,  sternly.  "Better  that  one  man 
should  perish  than  that  the  whole  country  should  be 
ruined  for  his  sake.  It  is  resolved  that  he  shall  die  !  " 


186  BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

When  Charles,  no  longer  a  king,  was  led  to  the  scaf 
fold,  his  great  enemy  stood  at  a  window  of  the  royal 
palace  of  Whitehall.  He  beheld  the  poor  victim  of 
pride,  and  an  evil  education,  and  misused  power,  as 
he  laid  his  head  upon  the  block.  He  looked  out  with 
a  steadfast  gaze  while  a  black-veiled  executioner  lifted 
the  fatal  axe  and  smote  off  that  anointed  head  at  a 
single  blow. 

"  It  is  a  righteous  deed,"  perhaps  he  said  to  himself. 
"  Now  Englishmen  may  enjoy  their  rights." 

At  night,  when  the  body  of  Charles  was  laid  in  the 
coffin,  in  a  gloomy  chamber,  the  general  entered,  light 
ing  himself  with  a  torch.  Its  gleam  showed  that  he 
was  now  growing  old ;  his  visage  was  scarred  with  the 
many  battles  in  which  he  had  led  the  van ;  his  brow 
was  wrinkled  with  care  and  with  the  continual  exer 
cise  of  stern  authority.  Probably  there  was  not  a 
single  trait,  either  of  aspect  or  manner,  that  belonged 
to  the  little  Noll  who  had  battled  so  stoutly  with 
Prince  Charles.  Yet  this  was  he ! 

He  lifted  the  coffin-lid,  and  caused  the  light  of  his 
torch  to  fall  upon  the  dead  monarch's  face.  Then, 
probably,  his  mind  went  back  over  all  the  marvellous 
events  that  had  brought  the  hereditary  King  of  Eng 
land  to  this  dishonored  coffin,  and  had  raised  him 
self,  a  humble  individual,  to  the  possession  of  kingly 
power.  He  was  a  king,  though  without  the  empty 
title  or  the  glittering  crown. 

u  Why  was  it,"  said  Cromwell  to  himself,  or  might 
have  said,  as  he  gazed  at  the  pale  features  in  the  cof 
fin,  —  "  why  was  it  that  this  great  king  fell,  and  that 
poor  Noll  Cromwell  has  gained  all  the  power  of  the 
realm?" 

And,  indeed,  why  was  it? 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  187 

King  Charles  had  fallen,  because,  in  his  manhood 
the  same  as  when  a  child,  he  disdained  to  feel  that 
every  human  creature  was  his  brother.  He  deemed 
himself  a  superior  being,  and  fancied  that  his  sub 
jects  were  created  only  for  a  king  to  rule  over.  And 
Cromwell  rose,  because,  in  spite  of  his  many  faults, 
he  mainly  fought  for  the  rights  and  freedom  of  his  fel 
low-men  ;  and  therefore  the  poor  and  the  oppressed 
all  lent  their  strength  to  him. 

"  Dear  father,  how  I  should  hate  to  be  a  king ! " 
exclaimed  Edward. 

"  And  would  you  like  to  be  a  Cromwell  ?  "  inquired 
his  father. 

"I  should  like  it  well,"  replied  George;  "only  I 
would  not  have  put  the  poor  old  king  to  death.  I 
would  have  sent  him  out  of  the  kingdom,  or  perhaps 
have  allowed  him  to  live  in  a  small  house  near  the 
gate  of  the  royal  palace.  It  was  too  severe  to  cut  off 
his  head." 

"  Kings  are  in  such  an  unfortunate  position,"  said 
Mr.  Temple,  "  that  they  must  either  be  almost  deified 
by  their  subjects,  or  else  be  dethroned  and  beheaded. 
In  either  case  it  is  a  pitiable  lot." 

"  Oh,  I  had  rather  be  blind  than  be  a  king !  "  said 
Edward. 

"  Well,  my  dear  Edward,"  observed  his  mother, 
with  a  smile,  "  I  am  glad  you  are  convinced  that  your 
own  lot  is  not  the  hardest  in  the  world." 


CHAPTER  VII. 

IT  was  a  pleasant  sight,  for  those  who  had  eyes,  to 
see  how  patiently  the  blinded  little  boy  now  submitted 
to  what  he  had  at  first  deemed  an  intolerable  calamity. 
The  beneficent  Creator  has  not  allowed  our  comfort  to 
depend  on  the  enjoyment  of  any  single  sense.  Though 
he  has  made  the  world  so  very  beautiful,  yet  it  is  pos 
sible  to  be  happy  without  ever  beholding  the  blue  sky, 
or  the  green  and  flowery  earth,  or  the  kind  faces  of 
those  whom  we  love.  Thus  it  appears  that  all  the  ex 
ternal  beauty  of  the  universe  is  a  free  gift  from  God 
over  and  above  what  is  necessary  to  our  comfort.  How 
grateful,  then,  should  we  be  to  that  divine  Benevo 
lence,  which  showers  even  superfluous  bounties  upon 
us! 

One  truth,  therefore,  which  Edward's  blindness  had 
taught  him  was,  that  his  mind  and  soul  could  dispense 
with  the  assistance  of  his  eyes.  Doubtless,  however, 
he  would  have  found  this  lesson  far  more  difficult  to 
learn  had  it  not  been  for  the  affection  of  those  around 
him.  His  parents,  and  George  and  Emily,  aided  him 
to  bear  his  misfortune ;  if  possible,  they  would  have 
lent  him  their  own  eyes.  And  this,  too,  was  a  good 
lesson  for  him.  It  taught  him  how  dependent  on  one 
another  God  has  ordained  us  to  be,  insomuch  that  all 
the  necessities  of  mankind  should  incite  them  to  mu 
tual  love. 

So  Edward  loved  his  friends,  and  perhaps  all  the 
world,  better  than  he  ever  did  before.  And  he  felt 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  189 

grateful  towards  his  father  for  spending  the  evenings 
in  telling  him  stories,  —  more  grateful,  probably,  than 
any  of  my  little  readers  will  feel  towards  me  for  so 
carefully  writing  these  same  stories  down. 

"  Come,  dear  father,"  said  he,  the  next  evening, 
"  now  tell  us  about  some  other  little  boy  who  was  des 
tined  to  be  a  famous  man." 

"  How  would  you  like  a  story  of  a  Boston  boy  ?  " 
asked  his  father. 

"  Oh,  pray  let  us  have  it !  "  cried  George,  eagerly. 
"  It  will  be  all  the  better  if  he  has  been  to  our  schools, 
and  has  coasted  on  the  Common,  and  sailed  boats  in 
the  Frog  Pond.  I  shall  feel  acquainted  with  him 
then." 

"  Well,  then,"  said  Mr.  Temple,  "  I  will  introduce 
you  to  a  Boston  boy  whom  all  the  world  became  ac 
quainted  with  after  he  grew  to  be  a  man." 

The  story  was  as  follows :  — 

BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN. 

[BORN  170G.    DIED  1790.] 

In  the  year  1716,  or  about  that  period,  a  boy  used 
to  be  seen  in  the  streets  of  Boston  who  was  known 
among  his  schoolfellows  and  playmates  by  the  name 
of  Ben  Franklin.  Ben  was  born  in  1706  ;  so  that  he 
was  now  about  ten  years  old.  His  father,  who  had 
come  over  from  England,  was  a  soap-boiler  and  tallow- 
chandler,  and  resided  in  Milk  Street,  not  far  from  the 
Old  South  Church. 

Ben  was  a  bright  boy  at  his  book,  and  even  a 
brighter  one  when  at  play  with  his  comrades.  He  had 
some  remarkable  qualities  which  always  seemed  to  give 
him  the  lead,  whether  at  sport  or  in  more  serious  mat 
ters.  I  might  tell  you  a  number  of  amusing  anecdotes 


190  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

about  him.  You  are  acquainted,  I  suppose,  with  his 
famous  story  of  the  WHISTLE,  and  how  he  bought  it 
with  a  whole  pocketful  of  coppers  and  afterwards  re 
pented  of  his  bargain.  But  Ben  had  grown  a  great 
boy  since  those  days,  and  had  gained  wisdom  by  ex 
perience  ;  for  it  was  one  of  his  peculiarities,  that  no 
incident  ever  happened  to  him  without  teaching  him 
some  valuable  lesson.  Thus  he  generally  profited 
more  by  his  misfortunes  than  many  people  do  by  the 
most  favorable  events  that  could  befall  them. 

Ben's  face  was  already  pretty  well  known  to  the  in 
habitants  of  Boston.  The  selectmen  and  other  people 
of  note  often  used  to  visit  his  father,  for  the  sake  of 
talking  about  the  affairs  of  the  town  or  province.  Mr. 
Franklin  was  considered  a  person  of  great  wisdom  and 
integrity,  and  was  respected  by  all  who  knew  him,  al 
though  he  supported  his  family  by  the  humble  trade 
of  boiling  soap  and  making  tallow  candles. 

While  his  father  and  the  visitors  were  holding  deep 
consultations  about  public  affairs,  little  Ben  would  sit 
on  his  stool  in  a  corner,  listening  with  the  greatest  in 
terest,  as  if  he  understood  every  word.  Indeed,  his 
features  were  so  full  of  intelligence  that  there  could 
be  but  little  doubt,  not  only  that  he  understood  what 
was  said,  but  that  he  could  have  expressed  some  very 
sagacious  opinions  out  of  his  own  mind.  But  in  those 
clays  boys  were  expected  to  be  silent  in  the  presence  of 
their  elders.  However,  Ben  Franklin  was  looked  upon 
as  a  very  promising  lad,  who  would  talk  and  act  wisely 
by  and  by. 

"Neighbor  Franklin,"  his  father's  friends  would 
sometimes  say,  "  you  ought  to  send  this  boy  to  college 
and  make  a  minister  of  him." 

"  I  have  often  thought  of  it,"  his  father  would  re- 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  191 

ply;  "and  my  brother  Benjamin  promises  to  give 
him  a  great  many  volumes  of  manuscript  sermons,  in 
case  he  should  be  educated  for  the  church.  But  I 
have  a  large  family  to  support,  and  cannot  afford  the 
expense." 

In  fact,  Mr.  Franklin  found  it  so  difficult  to  provide 
bread  for  his  family,  that,  when  the  boy  was  ten  years 
old,  it  became  necessary  to  take  him  from  school.  Ben 
was  then  employed  in  cutting  candle-wicks  into  equal 
lengths  and  filling  the  moulds  with  tallow  ;  and  many 
families  in  Boston  spent  their  evenings  by  the  light 
of  the  candles  which  he  had  helped  to  make.  Thus, 
you  see,  in  his  early  days,  as  well  as  in  his  manhood, 
his  labors  contributed  to  throw  light  upon  dark  mat 
ters. 

Busy  as  his  life  now  was,  Ben  still  found  time  to 
keep  company  with  his  former  schoolfellows.  lie  and 
the  other  boys  were  very  fond  of  fishing,  and  spent 
many  of  their  leisure  hours  on  the  margin  of  the 
mill-pond,  catching  flounders,  perch,  eels,  and  tomcod, 
which  came  up  thither  with  the  tide.  The  place  where 
they  fished  is  now,  probably,  covered  with  stone  pave 
ments  and  brick  buildings,  and  thronged  with  people 
and  with  vehicles  of  all  kinds.  But  at  that  period  it 
was  a  marshy  spot  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  where 
gulls  flitted  and  screamed  overhead  and  salt-meadow 
grass  grew  under  foot. 

On  the  edge  of  the  water  there  was  a  deep  bed  of 
clay,  in  which  the  boys  were  forced  to  stand  while  they 
caught  their  fish.  Here  they  dabbled  in  mud  and  mire 
like  a  flock  of  ducks. 

"  This  is  very  uncomfortable,"  said  Ben  Franklin 
one  day  to  his  comrades,  while  they  were  standing  mid- 
leg  deep  in  the  quagmire. 


192  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

"  So  it  is,"  said  the  other  boys.  "  What  a  pity  we 
have  no  better  place  to  stand  !  " 

If  it  had  not  been  for  Ben,  nothing  more  would 
have  been  done  or  said  about  the  matter.  But  it  was 
not  in  his  nature  to  be  sensible  of  an  inconvenience 
without  using  his  best  efforts  to  find  a  remedy.  So, 
as  he  and  his  comrades  were  returning  from  the  water 
side,  Ben  suddenly  threw  down  his  string  of  fish  with 
a  very  determined  air. 

"  Boys,"  cried  he,  "  I  have  thought  of  a  scheme 
which  will  be  greatly  for  our  benefit  and  for  the  pub 
lic  benefit." 

It  was  queer  enough,  to  be  sure,  to  hear  this  little 
chap  —  this  rosy-cheeked,  ten-year-old  boy  —  talking 
about  schemes  for  the  public  benefit !  Nevertheless, 
his  companions  were  ready  to  listen,  being  assured 
that  Ben's  scheme,  whatever  it  was,  would  be  well 
worth  their  attention.  They  remembered  how  saga 
ciously  he  had  conducted  all  their  enterprises  ever 
since  he  had  been  old  enough  to  wear  small-clothes. 

They  remembered,  too,  his  wonderful  contrivance  of 
sailing  across  the  mill-pond  by  lying  flat  on  his  back 
in  the  water  and  allowing  himself  to  be  drawn  along 
by  a  paper  kite.  If  Ben  could  do  that,  he  might  cer 
tainly  do  anything. 

"  What  is  your  scheme,  Ben  ?  —  what  is  it  ?  "  cried 
they  all. 

It  so  happened  that  they  had  now  come  to  a  spot  of 
ground  where  a  new  house  was  to  be  built.  Scattered 
round  about  lay  a  great  many  large  stones  which  were 
to  be  used  for  the  cellar  and  foundation.  Ben  mounted 
upon  the  highest  of  these  stones,  so  that  he  might  speak 
with  the  more  authority. 

"  You  know,  lads. "  said  he,  "  what  a  plague  it  is  to 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  193 

be  forced  to  stand  in  the  quagmire  yonder,  —  over 
shoes  and  stockings  (if  we  wear  any)  in  mud  and 
water.  See  !  I  am  bedaubed  to  the  knees  of  my  small 
clothes  ;  and  you  are  all  in  the  same  pickle.  Unless 
we  can  find  some  remedy  for  this  evil,  our  fishing  busi 
ness  must  be  entirely  given  up.  And,  surely,  this 
would  be  a  terrible  misfortune  !  " 

"  That  it  would !  that  it  would !  "  said  his  comrades 
sorrowfully. 

"  Now,  I  propose,"  continued  Master  Benjamin, 
"  that  we  build  a  wharf,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying 
on  our  fisheries  You  see  these  stones.  The  work 
men  mean  to  use  them  for  the  underpinning  of  a 
house ;  but  that  would  be  for  only  one  man's  advan 
tage.  My  plan  is  to  take  these  same  stones  and  carry 
them  to  the  edge  of  the  water  and  build  a  wharf  with 
them.  This  will  not  only  enable  us  to  carry  on  the 
fishing  business  with  comfort  and  to  better  advantage, 
but  it  will  likewise  be  a  great  convenience  to  boats 
passing  up  and  down  the  stream.  Thus,  instead  of 
one  man,  fifty,  or  a  hundred,  or  a  thousand,  besides 
ourselves,  may  be  benefited  by  these  stones.  What 
say  you,  lads  ?  Shall  we  build  the  wharf?  " 

Ben's  proposal  was  received  with  one  of  those  up 
roarious  shouts  wherewith  boys  usually  express  their 
delight  at  whatever  completely  suits  their  views.  No 
body  thought  of  questioning  the  right  and  justice  of 
building  a  wharf  with  stones  that  belonged  to  another 
person. 

"  Hurrah  !  hurrah  !  "  shouted  they.  "  Let  's  set 
about  it." 

It  was  agreed  that  they  should  all  be  on  the  spot 
that  evening  and  commence  their  grand  public  enter 
prise  by  moonlight.  Accordingly,  at  the  appointed 

VOL.    XII.  13 


194  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 


+ 


time,  the  whole  gang  of  youthful  laborers  assembled, 
and  eagerly  began  to  remove  the  stones.  They  had 
not  calculated  how  much  toil  would  be  requisite  in 
this  important  part  of  their  undertaking.  The  very 
first  stone  which  they  laid  hold  of  proved  so  heavy  that 
it  almost  seemed  to  be  fastened  to  the  ground.  Noth 
ing  but  Ben  Franklin's  cheerful  and  resolute  spirit 
could  have  induced  them  to  persevere. 

Ben,  as  might  be  expected,  was  the  soul  of  the  en 
terprise.  By  his  mechanical  genius,  he  contrived  meth 
ods  to  lighten  the  labor  of  transporting  the  stones,  so 
that  one  boy,  under  his  directions,  would  perform  as 
much  as  half  a  dozen  if  left  to  themselves.  Whenever 
their  spirits  flagged  he  had  some  joke  ready,  which 
seemed  to  renew  their  strength,  by  setting  them  all  into 
a  roar  of  laughter.  And  when,  after  an  hour  or  two 
of  hard  work,  the  stones  were  transported  to  the  water 
side,  Ben  Franklin  was  the  engineer  to  superintend 
the  construction  of  the  wharf. 

The  boys,  like  a  colony  of  ants,  performed  a  great 
deal  of  labor  by  their  multitude,  though  the  individual 
strength  of  each  could  have  accomplished  but  little. 
Finally,  just  as  the  moon  sank  below  the  horizon,  the 
great  work  was  finished. 

"  Now,  boys,"  cried  Ben,  "  let 's  give  three  cheers 
and  go  home  to  bed.  To-morrow  we  may  catch  fish  at 
our  ease." 

"  Hurrah !  hurrah  !  hurrah  !  "  shouted  his  comrades. 

Then  they  all  went  home  in  such  an  ecstasy  of  de 
light  that  they  could  hardly  get  a  wink  of  sleep. 

The  story  was  not  yet  finished ;  but  George's  impa 
tience  caused  him  to  interrupt  it. 

"  How  I  wish  that  I  could  have  helped  to  build  that 
wharf !  "  exclaimed  he.  "  It  must  have  been  glorious 
fun.  Ben  Franklin  forever,  say  I." 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  195 

"  It  was  a  very  pretty  piece  of  work,"  said  Mr. 
Temple.  "  But  wait  till  you  hear  the  end  of  the 
story." 

"  Father,"  inquired  Edward,  "  whereabouts  in  Bos 
ton  was  the  mill-pond  on  which  Ben  built  his  wharf  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  exactly  know,' '  answered  Mr.  Temple  ; 
"  but  I  suppose  it  to  have  been  on  the  northern  verge 
of  the  town,  in  the  vicinity  of  what  are  now  called 
Merrimack  and  Charlestown  Streets.  That  thronged 
portion  of  the  city  was  once  a  marsh.  Some  of  it,  in 
fact,  was  covered  with  water." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

As  the  children  had  no  more  questions  to  ask,  Mr. 
Temple  proceeded  to  relate  what  consequences  ensued 
from  the  building  of  Ben  Franklin's  wharf. 

BENJAMIN   FKANKLIN. 

[CONTINUED.] 

In  the  morning,  when  the  early  sunbeams  were 
gleaming  on  the  steeples  and  roofs  of  the  town  and 
gilding  the  water  that  surrounded  it,  the  masons  came, 
rubbing  their  eyes,  to  begin  their  work  at  the  founda 
tion  of  the  new  house.  But,  on  reaching  the  spot, 
they  rubbed  their  eyes  so  much  the  harder.  What 
had  become  of  their  heap  of  stones  ? 

"  Why,  Sam,"  said  one  to  another,  in  great  per 
plexity,  "  here  's  been  some  witchcraft  at  work  while 
we  were  asleep.  The  stones  must  have  flown  away 
through  the  air  !  " 

"  More  likely  they  have  been  stolen !  "  answered  Sam. 

"  But  who  on  earth  would  think  of  stealing  a  heap 
of  stones  ?  "  cried  a  third.  "  Could  a  man  carry  them 
away  in  his  pocket  ?  " 

The  master  mason,  who  was  a  gruff  kind  of  man, 
stood  scratching  his  head,  and  said  nothing  at  first. 
But,  looking  carefully  on  the  ground,  he  discerned  in 
numerable  tracks  of  little  feet,  some  with  shoes  and 
some  barefoot.  Following  these  tracks  with  his  eye, 
he  saw  that  they  formed  a  beaten  path  towards  the 
water-side. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  197 

"  Ah,  I  see  what  the  mischief  is,"  said  he,  nodding 
his  head.  "  Those  little  rascals,  the  boys,  —  they  have 
stolen  our  stones  to  build  a  wharf  with !  " 

The  masons  immediately  went  to  examine  the  new 
structure.  And,  to  say  the  truth,  it  was  well  worth 
looking  at,  so  neatly  and  with  such  admirable  skill  had 
it  been  planned  and  finished.  These  stones  were  put 
together  so  securely  that  there  was  no  danger  of  their 
being  loosened  by  the  tide,  however  swiftly  it  might 
sweep  along.  There  was  a  broad  and  safe  platform  to 
stand  upon,  whence  the  little  fishermen  might  cast 
their  lines  into  deep  water  and  draw  up  fish  in  abun 
dance.  Indeed,  it  almost  seemed  as  if  Ben  and  his 
comrades  might  be  forgiven  for  taking  the  stones,  be 
cause  they  had  done  their  job  in  such  a  workmanlike 
manner. 

"  The  chaps  that  built  this  wharf  understood  their 
business  pretty  well,"  said  one  of  the  masons.  u  I 
should  not  be  ashamed  of  such  a  piece  of  work  my 
self." 

But  the  master  mason  did  not  seem  to  enjoy  the 
joke.  He  was  one  of  those  unreasonable  people  who 
care  a  great  deal  more  for  their  own  rights  and  privi 
leges  than  for  the  convenience  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

"  Sam,"  said  he,  more  gruffly  than  usual,  "  go  call 
a  constable." 

So  Sam  called  a  constable,  and  inquiries  were  set  on 
foot  to  discover  the  perpetrators  of  the  theft.  In  the 
course  of  the  day  warrants  were  issued,  with  the  signa 
ture  of  a  justice  of  the  peace,  to  take  the  bodies  of 
Benjamin  Franklin,  and  other  evil  -  disposed  persons, 
who  had  stolen  a  heap  of  stones.  If  the  owner  of  the 
stolen  property  had  not  been  more  merciful  than  the 


198  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

master  mason,  it  might  have  gone  hard  with  our  friend 
Benjamin  and  his  fellow-laborers.  But,  luckily  for 
them,  the  gentleman  had  a  respect  for  Ben's  father, 
and,  moreover,  was  amused  with  the  spirit  of  the  whole 
affair.  He  therefore  let  the  culprits  off  pretty  easily. 

But,  when  the  constables  were  dismissed,  the  poor 
boys  had  to  go  through  another  trial,  and  receive  sen 
tence,  and  suffer  execution,  too,  from  their  own  fa 
thers.  Many  a  rod,  I  grieve  to  say,  was  worn  to  the 
stump  on  that  unlucky  night. 

As  for  Ben,  he  was  less  afraid  of  a  whipping  than 
of  his  father's  disapprobation.  Mr.  Franklin,  as  I 
have  mentioned  before,  was  a  sagacious  man,  and  also 
an  inflexibly  upright  one.  He  had  read  much  for  a 
person  in  his  rank  of  life,  and  had  pondered  upon  the 
ways  of  the  world,  until  he  had  gained  more  wisdom 
than  a  whole  library  of  books  could  have  taught  him. 
Ben  had  a  greater  reverence  for  his  father  than  for 
any  other  person  in  the  world,  as  well  on  account  of 
his  spotless  integrity  as  of  his  practical  sense  and  deep 
views  of  things. 

Consequently,  after  being  released  from  the  clutches 
of  the  law,  Ben  came  into  his  father's  presence  with 
no  small  perturbation  of  mind. 

"Benjamin,  come  hither,"  began  Mr.  Franklin,  in 
his  customary  solemn  and  weighty  tone. 

The  boy  approached  and  stood  before  his  father's 
chair,  waiting  reverently  to  hear  what  judgment  this 
good  irian  would  pass  upon  his  late  offence.  He  felt 
that  now  the  right  and  wrong  of  the  whole  matter 
would  be  made  to  appear. 

"  Benjamin  !  "  said  his  father,  "  what  could  induce 
you  to  take  property  which  did  not  belong  to  you  ?  " 

"Why,  father,"  replied  Ben,  hanging  his  head  at 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  199 

first,  but  then  lifting  his  eyes  to  Mr.  Franklin's  face, 
"  if  it  had  been  merely  for  my  own  benefit,  I  never 
should  have  dreamed  of  it.  But  I  knew  that  the 
wharf  would  be  a  public  convenience.  If  the  owner 
of  the  stones  should  build  a  house  with  them,  nobody 
will  enjoy  any  advantage  except  himself.  Now,  I  made 
use  of  them  in  a  way  that  was  for  the  advantage  of 
many  persons.  I  thought  it  right  to  aim  at  doing 
good  to  the  greatest  number." 

"  My  son,"  said  Mr.  Franklin,  solemnly,  "  so  far  as 
it  was  in  your  power,  you  have  done  a  greater  harm  to 
the  public  than  to  the  owner  of  the  stones." 

"  How  can  that  be,  father  ?  ".  asked  Ben. 

"  Because,"  answered  his  father,  "  in  building  your 
wharf  with  stolen  materials,  you  have  committed  a 
moral  wrong.  There  is  no  more  terrible  mistake  than 

O 

to  violate  what  is  eternally  right  for  the  sake  of  a 
seeming  expediency.  Those  who  act  upon  such  a  prin 
ciple  do  the  utmost  in  their  power  to  destroy  all  that  is 
good  in  the  world." 

"  Heaven  forbid !  "  said  Benjamin. 

"No  act,"  continued  Mr.  Franklin,  "can  possibly 
be  for  the  benefit  of  the  public  generally  which  in 
volves  injustice  to  any  individual.  It  would  be  easy 
to  prove  this  by  examples.  But,  indeed,  can  we  sup 
pose  that  our  all-wise  and  just  Creator  would  have  so 
ordered  the  affairs  of  the  world  that  a  wrong  act 
should  be  the  true  method  of  attaining  a  fight  end  ? 
It  is  impious  to  think  so.  And  I  do  verily  believe, 
Benjamin,  that  almost  all  the  public  and  private  mis 
ery  of  mankind  arises  from  a  neglect  of  this  great 
truth,  —  that  evil  can  produce  only  evil,  —  that  good 
ends  must  be  wrought  out  by  good  means." 

"  I  will  never  forget  it  again,"  said  Benjamin,  bow 
ing  his  head. 


200  BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

"Kemember,"  concluded  his  father,  "that,  when 
ever  we  vary  from  the  highest  rule  of  right,  just  so 
far  we  do  an  injury  to  the  world.  It  may  seem  other- 
wise  for  the  moment ;  but,  both  in  time  and  in  eter 
nity,  it  will  be  found  so." 

To  the  close  of  his  life  Ben  Franklin  never  forgot 
this  conversation  with  his  father ;  and  we  have  reason 
to  suppose  that,  in  most  of  his  public  and  private 
career,  he  endeavored  to  act  upon  the  principles  which 
that  good  and  wise  man  had  then  taught  him. 

After  the  great  event  of  building  the  wharf,  Ben 
continued  to  cut  wick-yarn  and  fill  candle-moulds  for 
about  two  years.  But,  as  he  had  no  love  for  that  oc 
cupation,  his  father  often  took  him  to  see  various  arti 
sans  at  their  work,  in  order  to  discover  what  trade  he 
would  prefer.  Thus  Ben  learned  the  use  of  a  great 
many  tools,  the  knowledge  of  which  afterwards  proved 
very  useful  to  him.  But  he  seemed  much  inclined  to 
go  to  sea.  In  order  to  keep  him  at  home,  and  like 
wise  to  gratify  his  taste  for  letters,  the  lad  was  bound 
apprentice  to  his  elder  brother,  who  had  lately  set  up 
a  printing-office  in  Boston. 

Here  he  had  many  opportunities  of  reading  new 
books  and  of  hearing  instructive  conversation.  He 
exercised  himself  so  successfully  in  writing  composi 
tions,  that,  when  no  more  than  thirteen  or  fourteen 
years  old,  he  became  a  contributor  to  his  brother's 
newspaper.  Ben  was  also  a  versifier,  if  not  a  poet. 
He  made  two  doleful  ballads,  —  one  about  the  ship 
wreck  of  Captain  Worthilake ;  and  the  other  about 
the  pirate  Black  Beard,  who,  not  long  before,  infested 
the  American  seas. 

When  Ben's  verses  were  printed,  his  brother  sent 
him  to  sell  them  to  the  towns-people  wet  from  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  201 

press.  "  Buy  my  ballads !  "  shouted  Benjamin,  as  he 
trudged  through  the  streets  with  a  basketful  on  his 
arm.  "  Who  '11  buy  a  ballad  about  Black  Beard  ?  A 
penny  apiece !  a  penny  apiece !  Who  '11  buy  my  bal 
lads?" 

If  one  of  those  roughly  composed  and  rudely  printed 
ballads  could  be  discovered  now,  it  would  be  worth 
more  than  its  weight  in  gold. 

In  this  way  our  friend  Benjamin  spent  his  boyhood 
and  youth,  until,  on  account  of  some  disagreement 
with  his  brother,  he  left  his  native  town  and  went  to 
Philadelphia.  He  landed  in  the  latter  city,  a  home 
less  and  hungry  young  man,  and  bought  threepence 
worth  of  bread  to  satisfy  his  appetite.  Not  knowing 
where  else  to  go,  he  entered  a  Quaker  meeting-house, 
sat  down,  and  fell  fast  asleep.  He  has  not  told  us 
whether  his  slumbers  were  visited  by  any  dreams.  But 
it  would  have  been  a  strange  dream,  indeed,  and  an 
incredible  one,  that  should  have  foretold  how  great  a 
man  he  was  destined  to  become,  and  how  much  he 
would  be  honored  in  that  very  city  where  he  was  now 
friendless  and  unknown. 

So  here  we  finish  our  story  of  the  childhood  of  Ben 
jamin  Franklin.  One  of  these  days,  if  you  would 
know  what  he  was  in  his  manhood,  you  must  read  his 
own  works  and  the  history  of  American  independence. 

"  Do  let  us  hear  a  little  more  of  him ! "  said  Ed 
ward  ;  "  not  that  I  admire  him  so  much  as  many  other 
characters ;  but  he  interests  me,  because  he  was  a 
Yankee  boy." 

"  My  dear  son,"  replied  Mr.  Temple,  "  it  would  re 
quire  a  whole  volume  of  talk  to  tell  you  all  that  is 
worth  knowing  about  Benjamin  Franklin.  There  is  a 
very  pretty  anecdote  of  his  flying  a  kite  in  the  midst 


202  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

of  a  thunder-storm,  and  thus  drawing  down  the  light 
ning  from  the  clouds  and  proving  that  it  was  the  same 
thing  as  electricity.  His  whole  life  would  be  an  in 
teresting  story,  if  we  had  time  to  tell  it." 

"  But,  pray,  dear  father,  tell  us  what  made  him  so 
famous,"  said  George.  "  I  have  seen  his  portrait  a 
great  many  times.  There  is  a  wooden  bust  of  him  in 
one  of  our  streets ;  and  marble  ones,  I  suppose,  in 
some  other  places.  And  towns,  and  ships  of  war,  and 
steamboats,  and  banks,  and  academies,  and  children, 
are  often  named  after  Franklin.  Why  should  he  have 
grown  so  very  famous  ?  " 

"Your  question  is  a  reasonable  one,  George,"  an 
swered  his  father.  "  I  doubt  whether  Franklin's  philo 
sophical  discoveries,  important  as  they  were,  or  even 
his  vast  political  services,  would  have  given  him  all 
the  fame  which  he  acquired.  It  appears  to  me  that 
"  Poor  Richard's  Almanac  "  did  more  than  anything 
else  towards  making  him  familiarly  known  to  the  pub 
lic.  As  the  writer  of  those  proverbs  which  Poor  Rich 
ard  was  supposed  to  utter,  Franklin  became  the  coun 
sellor  and  household  friend  of  almost  every  family  in 
America.  Thus  it  was  the  humblest  of  all  his  labors 
that  has  done  the  most  for  his  fame." 

"I  have  read  some  of  those  proverbs,"  remarked 
Edward ;  "  but  I  do  not  like  them.  They  are  all 
about  getting  money  or  saving  it." 

"  Well,"  said  his  father,  "  they  were  suited  to  the 
condition  of  the  country ;  and  their  effect,  upon  the 
whole,  has  doubtless  been  good,  although  they  teach 
men  but  a  very  small  portion  of  their  duties." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

HITHERTO  Mr.  Temple's  narratives  had  all  been 
about  boys  and  men.  But,  the  next  evening,  he  be 
thought  himself  that  the  quiet  little  Emily  would  per 
haps  be  glad  to  hear  the  story  of  a  child  of  her  own 
sex.  He  therefore  resolved  to  narrate  the  youthful 
adventures  of  Christina,  of  Sweden,  who  began  to  be 
a  queen  at  the  age  of  no  more  than  six  years.  If  we 
have  any  little  girls  among  our  readers,  they  must  not 
suppose  that  Christina  is  set  before  them  as  a  pattern 
of  what  they  ought  to  be.  On  the  contrary,  the  tale 
of  her  life  is  chiefly  profitable  as  showing  the  evil  ef 
fects  of  a  wrong  education,  which  caused  this  daughter 
of  a  king  to  be  both  useless  and  unhappy.  Here  fol 
lows  the  story. 

QUEEN   CHRISTINA. 

[BOEN  1626.    DIED  1689.] 

In  the  royal  palace  at  Stockholm,  the  capital  city  of 
Sweden,  there  was  born,  in  1626,  a  little  princess. 
The  king,  her  father,  gave  her  the  name  of  Christina, 
in  memory  of  a  Swedish  girl  with  whom  he  had  been 
in  love.  His  own  name  was  Gustavus  Adolphus  ;  and 
he  was  also  called  the  Lion  of  the  North,  because  he 
had  gained  greater  fame  in  war  than  any  other  prince 
or  general  then  alive.  With  this  valiant  king  for 
their  commander,  the  Swedes  had  made  themselves 
terrible  to  the  Emperor  of  Germany  and  to  the  King 
of  France,  and  were  looked  upon  as  the  chief  defence 
of  the  Protestant  religion. 


204  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

The  little  Christina  was  by  no  means  a  beautiful 
child.  To  confess  the  truth,  she  was  remarkably 
plain.  The  queen,  her  mother,  did  not  love  her  so 
much  as  she  ought;  partly,  perhaps,  on  account  of 
Christina's  want  of  beauty,  and  also  because  both  the 
king  and  queen  had  wished  for  a  son,  who  might  have 
gained  as  great  renown  in  battle  as  his  father  had. 

The  king,  however,  soon  became  exceedingly  fond  of 
the  infant  princess.  When  Christina  was  very  young 
she  was  taken  violently  sick.  Gustavus  Adolphus, 
who  was  several  hundred  miles  from  Stockholm,  trav 
elled  night  and  day,  and  never  rested  until  he  held  the 
poor  child  in  his  arms.  On  her  recovery  he  made  a 
solemn  festival,  in  order  to  show  his  joy  to  the  people 
of  Sweden  and  express  his  gratitude  to  Heaven.  Af 
ter  this  event  he  took  his  daughter  with  him  in  all  the 
journeys  which  he  made  throughout  his  kingdom. 

Christina  soon  proved  herself  a  bold  and  sturdy  lit 
tle  girl.  When  she  was  two  years  old,  the  king  and 
herself,  in  the  course  of  a  journey,  came  to  the  strong 
fortress  of  Colmar.  On  the  battlements  were  soldiers 
clad  in  steel  armor,  which  glittered  in  the  sunshine. 
There  were  likewise  great  cannons,  pointing  their 
black  mouths  at  Gustavus  and  little  Christina,  and 
ready  to  belch  out  their  smoke  and  thunder ;  for,  when, 
ever  a  king  enters  a  fortress,  it  is  customary  to  receive 
him  with  a  royal  salute  of  artillery. 

But  the  captain  of  the  fortress  met  Gustavus  and 
his  daughter  as  they  were  about  to  enter  the  gateway. 

"  May  it  please  your  Majesty,"  said  he,  taking  off 
his  steel  cap  and  bowing  profoundly,  "  I  fear  that,  if 
we  receive  you  with  a  salute  of  cannon,  the  little  prin 
cess  will  be  frightened  almost  to  death." 

Gustavus  looked  earnestly  at  his  daughter,  and  wa§ 


BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES.  205 

indeed  apprehensive  that  the  thunder  of  so  many  can 
non  might  perhaps  throw  her  into  convulsions.  He 
had  almost  a  mind  to  tell  the  captain  to  let  them  en 
ter  the  fortress  quietly,  as  common  people  might  have 
done,  without  all  this  head-splitting  racket.  But  no ; 
this  would  not  do. 

"Let  them  fire,"  said  he,  waving  his  hand.  "Chris 
tina  is  a  soldier's  daughter,  and  must  learn  to  bear  the 
noise  of  cannon." 

So  the  captain  uttered  the  word  of  command,  and 
immediately  there  was  a  terrible  peal  of  thunder  from 
the  cannon,  and  such  a  gush  of  smoke  that  it  envel 
oped  the  whole  fortress  in  its  volumes.  But,  amid  all 
the  din  and  confusion,  Christina  was  seen  clapping  her 
little  hands,  and  laughing  in  an  ecstasy  of  delight. 
Probably  nothing  ever  pleased  her  father  so  much  as 
to  see  that  his  daughter  promised  to  be  fearless  as 
himself.  He  determined  to  educate  her  exactly  as  if 
she  had  been  a  boy,  and  to  teach  her  all  the  knowl 
edge  needful  to  the  ruler  of  a  kingdom  and  the  com 
mander  of  an  army. 

But  Gustavus  should  have  remembered  that  Provi 
dence  had  created  her  to  be  a  woman,  and  that  it  was 
not  for  him  to  make  a  man  of  her. 

However,  the  king  derived  great  happiness  from  his 
beloved  Christina.  It  must  have  been  a  pleasant  sight 
to  see  the  powerful  monarch  of  Sweden  playing  in 
some  magnificent  hall  of  the  palace  with  his  merry 
little  girl.  Then  he  forgot  that  the  weight  of  a  king 
dom  rested  upon  his  shoulders.  He  forgot  that  the 
wise  Chancellor  Oxenstiern  was  waiting  to  consult 
with  him  how  to  render  Sweden  the  greatest  nation  of 
Europe.  He  forgot  that  the  Emperor  of  Germany 
and  the  King  of  France  were  plotting  together  how 
they  might  pull  him  down  from  his  throne. 


206  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

Yes ;  Gustavus  forgot  all  the  perils,  and  cares,  and 
pompous  irksomeness  of  a  royal  life ;  and  was  as 
happy,  while  playing  with  his  child,  as  the  humblest 
peasant  in  the  realm  of  Sweden.  How  gayly  did  they 
dance  along  the  marble  floor  of  the  palace,  this  valiant 
king,  with  his  upright,  martial  figure,  his  war-worn 
visage,  and  commanding  aspect,  and  the  small,  round 
form  of  Christina,  with  her  rosy  face  of  childish  mer 
riment  !  Her  little  fingers  were  clasped  in  her  father's 
hand,  which  had  held  the  leading  staff  in  many  famous 
victories.  His  crown  and  sceptre  were  her  playthings. 
She  could  disarm  Gustavus  of  his  sword,  which  was  so 
terrible  to  the  princes  of  Europe. 

But,  alas !  the  king  was  not  long  permitted  to  en 
joy  Christina's  society.  When  she  was  four  years  old 
Gustavus  was  summoned  to  take  command  of  the  al 
lied  armies  of  Germany,  which  were  fighting  against 
the  emperor.  His  greatest  affliction  was  the  necessity 
of  parting  with  his  child;  but  people  in  such  high 
stations  have  but  little  opportunity  for  domestic  happi 
ness.  He  called  an  assembly  of  the  senators  of  Sweden 
and  confided  Christina  to  their  care,  saying,  that  each 
one  of  them  must  be  a  father  to  her  if  he  himself 
should  fall  in  battle. 

At  the  moment  of  his  departure  Christina  ran  to 
wards  him  and  began  to  address  him  with  a  speech 
which  somebody  had  taught  her  for  the  occasion. 
Gustavus  was  busied  with  thoughts  about  the  affairs 
of  the  kingdom,  so  that  he  did  not  immediately  attend 
to  the  childish  voice  of  his  little  girl.  Christina,  who 
did  not  love  to  be  unnoticed,  immediately  stopped 
short  and  pulled  him  by  the  coat. 

"  Father,"  said  she,  «  why  do  not  you  listen  to  my 
speech  ?  " 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  207 

In  a  moment  the  king  forgot  everything  except  that 
he  was  parting  with  what  he  loved  best  in  all  the 
world.  He  caught  the  child  in  his  arms,  pressed  her 
to  his  bosom,  and  burst  into  tears.  Yes ;  though  he 
was  a  brave  man,  and  though  he  wore  a  steel  corselet 
on  his  breast,  and  though  armies  were  waiting  for  him 
to  lead  them  to  battle,  still  his  heart  melted  within 
him,  and  he  wept.  Christina,  too,  was  so  afflicted 
that  her  attendants  began  to  fear  that  she  would  ac 
tually  die  of  grief.  But  probably  she  was  soon  com 
forted;  for  children  seldom  remember  their  parents 
quite  so  faithfully  as  their  parents  remember  them. 

For  two  years  more  Christina  remained  in  the  palace 
at  Stockholm.  The  queen,  her  mother,  had  accompa 
nied  Gustavus  to  the  wars.  The  child,  therefore,  was 
left  to  the  guardianship  of  five  of  the  wisest  men  in 
the  kingdom.  But  these  wise  men  knew  better  how 
to  manage  the  affairs  of  state  than  how  to  govern  and 
educate  a  little  girl  so  as  to  render  her  a  good  and 
happy  woman. 

When  two  years  had  passed  away,  tidings  were 
brought  to  Stockholm  which  filled  everybody  with 
triumph  and  sorrow  at  the  same  time.  The  Swedes 
had  won  a  glorious  victory  at  Lutzen.  But,  alas  !  the 
warlike  King  of  Sweden,  the  Lion  of  the  North,  the 
father  of  our  little  Christina,  had  been  slain  at  the 
foot  of  a  great  stone,  which  still  marks  the  spot  of 
that  hero's  death. 

Soon  after  this  sad  event,  a  general  assembly,  or 
congress,  consisting  of  deputations  from  the  nobles, 
the  clergy,  the  burghers,  and  the  peasants  of  Sweden, 
was  summoned  to  meet  at  Stockholm.  It  was  for  the 
purpose  of  declaring  little  Christina  to  be  Queen  of 
Sweden,  and  giving  her  the  crown  and  sceptre  of  her 


208  BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES. 

deceased  father.  Silence  being  proclaimed,  the  Chan 
cellor  Oxenstiern  arose. 

"  We  desire  to  know,"  said  he,  "  whether  the  people 
of  Sweden  will  take  the  daughter  of  our  dead  king, 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  to  be  their  queen." 

When  the  chancellor  had  spoken,  an  old  man,  with 
white  hair  and  in  coarse  apparel,  stood  up  in  the  midst 
of  the  assembly.  He  was  a  peasant,  Lars  Larrson  by 
name,  and  had  spent  most  of  his  life  in  laboring  on  a 

farm. 

"Who  is  this  daughter  of  Gustavus?  "  asked  the 
old  man.  "  We  do  not  know  her.  Let  her  be  shown 

to  us." 

Then  Christina  was  brought  into  the  hall  and  placed 
before  the  old  peasant.  It  was  strange,  no  doubt,  to 
see  a  child  —  a  little  girl  of  six  years  old  —  offered  to 
the  Swedes  as  their  ruler  instead  of  the  brave  king, 
her  father,  who  had  led  them  to  victory  so  many  times. 
Could  her  baby  fingers  wield  a  sword  in  war  ?  Could 
her  childish  mind  govern  the  nation  wisely  in  peace? 

But  the  Swedes  do  not  appear  to  have  asked  them 
selves  these  questions.  Old  Lars  Larrson  took  Chris 
tina  up  in  his  arms  and  gazed  earnestly  into  her  face. 
He  had  known  the  great  Gustavus  well ;  and  his  heart 
was  touched  when  he  saw  the  likeness  which  the  little 
girl  bore  to  that  heroic  monarch. 

"  Yes,"  cried  he,  with  the  tears  gushing  down  his 
furrowed  cheeks;  "this  is  truly  the  daughter  of  our 
Gustavus!  Here  is  her  father's  brow!  — here  is  his 
piercing  eye!  She  is  his  very  picture !  This  child 
shall  be  our  queen !  " 

Then  all  the  proud  nobles  of  Sweden,  and  the  rever 
end  clergy,  and  the  burghers,  and  the  peasants, 
down  at  the  child's  feet  and  kissed  her  hand. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  209 

"  Long  live  Christina,  Queen  of  Sweden  !  "  shouted 
they. 

Even  after  she  was  a  woman  grown  Christina  re 
membered  the  pleasure  which  she  felt  in  seeing  all 
these  men  at  her  feet  and  hearing  them  acknowledge 
her  as  their  supreme  ruler.  Poor  child  !  she  was  yet 
to  learn  that  power  does  not  insure  happiness.  As 
yet,  however,  she  had  not  any  real  power.  All  the 
public  business,  it  is  true,  was  transacted  in  her  name ; 
but  the  kingdom  was  governed  by  a  number  of  the 
most  experienced  statesmen,  who  were  called  a  re 
gency. 

But  it  was  considered  necessary  that  the  little  queen 
should  be  present  at  the  public  ceremonies,  and  should 
behave  just  as  if  she  were  in  reality  the  ruler  of  the 
nation.  When  she  was  seven  years  of  age,  some  am 
bassadors  from  the  Czar  of  Muscovy  came  to  the 
Swedish  court.  They  wore  long  beards,  and  were 
clad  in  a  strange  .fashion,  with  furs  and  other  outland 
ish  ornaments  ;  and  as  they  were  inhabitants  of  a  half- 
civilized  country,  they  did  not  behave  like  other  peo 
ple.  The  Chancellor  Oxenstiern  was  afraid  that  the 
young  queen  would  burst  out  a  laughing  at  the  first 
sight  of  these  queer  ambassadors,  or  else  that  she 
would  be  frightened  by  their  unusual  aspect. 

"Why  should  I  be  frightened?"  said  the  little 
queen.  "  And  do  you  suppose  that  I  have  no  better 
manners  than  to  laugh  ?  Only  tell  me  how  I  must  be 
have,  and  I  will  do  it." 

Accordingly,  the  Muscovite  ambassadors  were  in 
troduced  ;  and  Christina  received  them  and  answered 
their  speeches  with  as  much  dignity  and  propriety  as 
if  she  had  been  a  grown  woman. 

All  this  time,  though  Christina  was  now  a  queen, 


210  BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

you  must  not  suppose  that  she  was  left  to  act  as  she 
pleased.  She  had  a  preceptor,  named  John  Mathias, 
who  was  a  very  learned  man  and  capable  of  instruct 
ing  her  in  all  the  branches  of  science.  But  there  was 
nobody  to  teach  her  the  delicate  graces  and  gentle  vir 
tues  of  a  woman.  She  was  surrounded  almost  entirely 
by  men,  and  had  learned  to  despise  the  society  of  her 
own  sex.  At  the  age  of  nine  years  she  was  separated 
from  her  mother,  whom  the  Swedes  did  not  consider 
a  proper  person  to  be  intrusted  with  the  charge  of  her. 
No  little  girl  who  sits  by  a  New  England  fireside  has 
cause  to  envy  Christina  in  the  royal  palace  at  Stock 
holm. 

Yet  she  made  great  progress  in  her  studies.  She 
learned  to  read  the  classical  authors  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  became  a  great  admirer  of  the  heroes  and 
poets  of  old  times.  Then,  as  for  active  exercises,  she 
could  ride  on  horseback  as  well  as  any  man  in  her 
kingdom.  She  was  fond  of  hunting,  and  could  shoot 
at  a  mark  with  wonderful  skill.  But  dancing  was  the 
only  feminine  accomplishment  with  which  she  had  any 
acquaintance. 

She  was  so  restless  in  her  disposition  that  none  of 
her  attendants  were  sure  of  a  moment's  quiet  neither 
day  nor  night.  She  grew  up,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  a 
very  unamiable  person,  ill-tempered,  proud,  stubborn, 
and,  in  short,  unfit  to  make  those  around  her  happy, 
or  to  be  happy  herself.  Let  every  little  girl,  who  has 
been  taught  self-control  and  a  due  regard  for  the 
rights  of  others,  thank  Heaven  that  she  has  had  bet 
ter  instruction  than  this  poor  little  Queen  of  Sweden. 

At  the  a^e  of  eighteen  Christina  was  declared  free 
to  govern  the  kingdom  by  herself  without  the  aid  of  a 
regency.  At  this  period  of  her  life  she  was  a  young 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  211 

woman  of  striking  aspect,  a  good  figure,  and  intelli 
gent  face,  but  very  strangely  dressed.  She  wore  a 
short  habit  of  gray  cloth,  with  a  man's  vest  over  it, 
and  a  black  scarf  around  her  neck ;  but  no  jewels  nor 
ornaments  of  any  kind. 

Yet,  though  Christina  was  so  negligent  of  her  ap 
pearance,  there  was  something  in  her  air  and  manner 
that  proclaimed  her  as  the  ruler  of  a  kingdom.  Her 
eyes,  it  is  said,  had  a  very  fierce  and  haughty  look. 
Old  General  Wrangel,  who  had  often  caused  the  ene 
mies  of  Sweden  to  tremble  in  battle,  actually  trembled 
himself  when  he  encountered  the  eyes  of  the  queen. 
But  it  would  have  been  better  for  Christina  if  she 
could  have  made  people  love  her,  by  means  of  soft 
and  gentle  looks,  instead  of  affrighting  them  by  such 
terrible  glances. 

And  now  I  have  told  you  almost  all  that  is  amusing 
or  instructive  in  the  childhood  of  Christina.  Only  a 
few  more  words  need  be  said  about  her ;  for  it  is 
neither  pleasant  nor  profitable  to  think  of  many  things 
that  she  did  after  she  grew  to  be  a  woman. 

When  she  had  worn  the  crown  a  few  years,  she  be 
gan  to  consider  it  beneath  her  dignity  to  be  called  a 
queen,  because  the  name  implied  that  she  belonged  to 
the  weaker  sex.  She  therefore  caused  herself  to  be 
proclaimed  KING  ;  thus  declaring  to  the  world  that  she 
despised  her  own  sex  and  was  desirous  of  being  ranked 
among  men.  But  in  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  her 
age  Christina  grew  tired  of  royalty,  and  resolved  to 
be  neither  a  king  nor  a  queen  any  longer.  She  took 
the  crown  from  her  head  with  her  own  hands,  and 
ceased  to  be  the  ruler  of  Sweden.  The  people  did  not 
greatly  regret  her  abdication ;  for  she  had  governed 
them  ill,  and  had  taken  much  of  their  property  to 
supply  her  extravagance. 


212  BIOGRAPHICAL  STORIES. 

Having  thus  given  up  her  hereditary  crown,  Chris 
tina  left  Sweden  and  travelled  over  many  of  the  coun 
tries  of  Europe.  Everywhere  she  was  received  with 
great  ceremony,  because  she  was  the  daughter  of  the 
renowned  Gustavus,  and  had  herself  been  a  powerful 
queen.  Perhaps  you  would  like  to  know  something 
about  her  personal  appearance  in  the  latter  part  of  her 
life.  She  is  described  as  wearing  a  man's  vest,  a  short 
gray  petticoat,  embroidered  with  gold  and  silver,  and 
a  black  wig,  which  was  thrust  awry  upon  her  head. 
She  wore  no  gloves,  and  so  seldom  washed  her  hands 
that  nobody  could  tell  what  had  been  their  original 
color.  In  this  strange  dress,  and,  I  suppose,  without 
washing  her  hands  or  face,  she  visited  the  magnificent 
court  of  Louis  XIV. 

She  died  in  1689.  None  loved  her  while  she  lived, 
nor  regretted  her  death,  nor  planted  a  single  flower 
upon  her  grave.  Happy  are  the  little  girls  of  Amer 
ica,  who  are  brought  up  quietly  and  tenderly  at  the 
domestic  hearth,  and  thus  become  gentle  and  delicate 
women !  May  none  of  them  ever  lose  the  loveliness  of 
their  sex  by  receiving  such  an  education  as  that  of 
Queen  Christina ! 

Emily,  timid,  quiet,  and  sensitive,  was  the  very  re 
verse  of  little  Christina.  She  seemed  shocked  at  the 
idea  of  such  a  bold  masculine  character  as  has  been 
described  in  the  foregoing  story. 

"  I  never  could  have  loved  her,"  whispered  she  to 
Mrs.  Temple  ;  and  then  she  added,  with  that  love  of 
personal  neatness  which  generally  accompanies  purity 
of  heart,  "It  troubles  me  to  think  of  her  unclean 
hands !  " 

"  Christina  was  a  sad  specimen  of  womankind  in- 


BIOGRAPHICAL   STORIES.  213 

deed,"  said  Mrs.  Temple.  "But  it  is  very  possible 
for  a  woman  to  have  a  strong  mind,  and  to  be  fitted 
for  the  active  business  of  life,  without  losing  any  of 
her  natural  delicacy.  Perhaps  some  time  or  other  Mr. 
Temple  will  tell  you  a  story  of  such  a  woman." 

It  was  now  time  for  Edward  to  be  left  to  repose. 
His  brother  George  shook  him  heartily  by  the  hand, 
and  hoped,  as  he  had  hoped  twenty  times  before,  that 
to-morrow  or  the  next  day  Ned's  eyes  would  be  strong 
enough  to  look  the  sun  right  in  the  face. 

"Thank  you,  George,"  replied  Edward,  smiling; 
"  but  I  am  not  half  so  impatient  as  at  first.  If  my 
bodily  eyesight  were  as  good  as  yours,  perhaps  I  could 
not  see  things  so  distinctly  with  my  mind's  eye.  But 
now  there  is  a  light  within  which  shows  me  the  little 
Quaker  artist,  Ben  West,  and  Isaac  Newton  with  his 
windmill,  and  stubborn  Sam  Johnson,  and  stout  Noll 
Cromwell,  and  shrewd  Ben  Franklin,  and  little  Queen 
Christina,  with  the  Swedes  kneeling  at  her  feet.  It 
seems  as  if  I  really  saw  these  personages  face  to  face. 
So  I  can  bear  the  darkness  outside  of  me  pretty  well." 

When  Edward  ceased  speaking,  Emily  put  up  her 
mouth  and  kissed  him  as  her  farewell  for  the  night. 

"  Ah,  I  forgot !  "  said  Edward,  with  a  sigh.  "  I 
cannot  see  any  of  your  faces.  What  would  it  signify 
to  see  all  the  famous  people  in  the  world,  if  I  must  be 
blind  to  the  faces  that  I  love  ?  " 

"  You  must  try  to  see  us  with  your  heart,  my  dear 
child,"  said  his  mother. 

Edward  went  to  bed  somewhat  dispirited  ;  but, 
quickly  falling  asleep,  was  visited  with  such  a  pleas 
ant  dream  of  the  sunshine  and  of  his  dearest  friends 
that  he  felt  the  happier  for  it  all  the  next  day.  And 
we  hope  to  find  him  still  happy  when  we  meet  again. 


BIOGKAPHIOAL  SKETCHES: 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES. 


MRS.  HUTCHINSON. 

THE  character  of  this  female  suggests  a  train  of 
thought  which  will  form  as  natural  an  Introduction 
to  her  story,  as  most  of  the  Prefaces  to  Gay's  Fables, 
or  the  tales  of  Prior ;  besides  that,  the  general  sound 
ness  of  the  moral  may  excuse  any  want  of  present  ap 
plicability.  We  will  not  look  for  a  living  resemblance 
of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  though  the  search  might  not  be 
altogether  fruitless.  But  there  are  portentous  indica 
tions,  changes  gradually  taking  place  in  the  habits 
and  feelings  of  the  gentle  sex,  which  seem  to  threaten 
our  posterity  with  many  of  those  public  women,  where 
of  one  was  a  burden  too  grievous  for  our  fathers.  The 
press,  however,  is  now  the  medium  through  which 
feminine  ambition  chiefly  manifests  itself ;  and  we 
will  not  anticipate  the  period  (trusting  to  be  gone 
hence  ere  it  arrive)  when  fair  orators  shall  be  as 
numerous  as  the  fair  authors  of  our  own  day.  The 
hastiest  glance  may  show  how  much  of  the  texture 
and  body  of  cisatlantic  literature  is  the  work  of  those 
slender  fingers  from  which  only  a  light  and  fanciful 
embroidery  has  heretofore  been  required,  that  might 
sparkle  upon  the  garment  without  enfeebling  the  web. 
Woman's  intellect  should  never  give  the  tone  to  that 
of  man  ;  and  even  her  morality  is  not  exactly  the  ma- 


218  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

terial  for  masculine  virtue.  A  false  liberality,  which 
mistakes  the  strong  division-lines  of  Nature  for  arbi 
trary  distinctions,  and  a  courtesy,  which  might  polish 
criticism,  but  should  never  soften  it,  have  done  their 
best  to  add  a  girlish  feebleness  to  the  tottering  infancy 
of  our  literature.  The  evil  is  likely  to  be  a  growing 
one.  As  yet,  the  great  body  of  American  women  are 
a  domestic  race  ;  but  when  a  continuance  of  ill-judged 
incitements  shall  have  turned  their  hearts  away  from 
the  fireside,  there  are  obvious  circumstances  which 
will  render  female  pens  more  numerous  and  more  pro 
lific  than  those  of  men,  though  but  equally  encouraged ; 
and  (limited,  of  course,  by  the  scanty  support  of  the 
public,  but  increasing  indefinitely  within  those  limits) 
the  ink-stained  Amazons  will  expel  their  rivals  by  ac 
tual  pressure,  and  petticoats  wave  triumphantly  over 
all  the  field.  But,  allowing  that  such  forebodings  are 
slightly  exaggerated,  is  it  good  for  woman's  self  that 
the  path  of  feverish  hope,  of  tremulous  success,  of  bit 
ter  and  ignominious  disappointment,  should  be  left 
wide  open  to  her?  Is  the  prize  worth  her  having  if 
she  win  it?  Fame  does  not  increase  the  peculiar  re 
spect  which  men  pay  to  female  excellence,  and  there 
is  a  delicacy  (even  in  rude  bosoms,  where  few  would 
think  to  find  it)  that  perceives,  or  fancies,  a  sort  of 
impropriety  in  the  display  of  woman's  natal  mind  to 
the  gaze  of  the  world,  with  indications  by  which  its 
inmost  secrets  may  be  searched  out.  In  fine,  criticism 
should  examine  with  a  stricter,  instead  of  a  more  in 
dulgent  eye,  the  merits  of  females  at  its  bar,  because 
they  are  to  justify  themselves  for  an  irregularity  which 
men  do  not  commit  in  appearing  there ;  and  woman, 
when  she  feels  the  impulse  of  genius  like  a  command 
of  Heaven  within  her,  should  be  aware  that  she  is  re- 


MRS.   HUTCHINSON.  219 

linquishing  a  part  of  the  loveliness  of  her  sex,  and 
obey  the  inward  voice  with  sorrowing  reluctance,  like 
the  Arabian  maid  who  bewailed  the  gift  of  prophecy. 
Hinting  thus,  imperfectly  at  sentiments  which  may  be 
developed  on  a  future  occasion,  we  proceed  to  consider 
the  celebrated  subject  of  this  sketch. 

Mrs.  Hutchinson  was  a  woman  of  extraordinary 
talent  and  strong  imagination,  whom  the  latter  quality, 
following  the  general  direction  taken  by  the  enthusi 
asm  of  the  times,  prompted  to  stand  forth  as  a  re 
former  in  religion.  In  her  native  country,  she  had 
shown  symptoms  of  irregular  and  daring  thought,  but, 
chiefly  by  the  influence  of  a  favorite  pastor,  was  re 
strained  from  open  indiscretion.  On  the  removal  of 
this  clergyman,  becoming  dissatisfied  with  the  ministry 
under  which  she  lived,  she  was  drawn  in  by  the  great 
tide  of  Puritan  emigration,  and  visited  Massachusetts 
within  a  few  years  after  its  first  settlement.  But  she 
bore  trouble  in  her  own  bosom,  and  could  find  no  peace 
in  this  chosen  land.  She  soon  began  to  promulgate 
strange  and  dangerous  opinions,  tending,  in  the  pe 
culiar  situation  of  the  colony,  and  from  the  principles 
which  were  its  basis  and  indispensable  for  its  tempo 
rary  support,  to  eat  into  its  very  existence.  We  shall 
endeavor  to  give  a  more  practical  idea  of  this  part  of 
her  course. 

It  is  a  summer  evening.  The  dusk  has  settled 
heavily  upon  the  woods,  the  waves,  and  the  Trimoun- 
tain  peninsula,  increasing  that  dismal  aspect  of  the  em 
bryo  town  which  was  said  to  have  drawn  tears  of  de 
spondency  from  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  though  she  believed 
that  her  mission  thither  was  divine.  The  houses,  straw 
thatched  and  lowly  roofed,  stand  irregularly  along 
streets  that  are  yet  roughened  by  the  roots  of  the  trees, 


220  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES. 

as  if  the  forest,  departing  at  the  approach  of  man, 
had  left  its  reluctant  footprints  behind.  Most  of  the 
dwellings  are  lonely  and  silent :  from  a  few  we  may 
hear  the  reading  of  some  sacred  text,  or  the  quiet  voice 
of  prayer ;  but  nearly  all  the  sombre  life  of  the  scene 
is  collected  near  the  extremity  of  the  village.  A  crowd 
of  hooded  women,  and  of  men  in  steeple -hats  and 
close-cropped  hair,  are  assembled  at  the  door  and  open 
windows  of  a  house  newly  built.  An  earnest  expres 
sion  glows  in  every  face ;  and  some  press  inward,  as 
if  the  bread  of  life  were  to  be  dealt  forth,  and  they 
feared  to  .  lose  their  share ;  while  others  would  f aiii 
hold  them  back,  but  enter  with  them,  since  they  may 
not  be  restrained.  We,  also,  will  go  in,  edging  through 
the  thronged  doorway  to  an  apartment  which  occu 
pies  the  whole  breadth  of  the  house.  At  the  upper 
end,  behind  a  table,  on  which  are  placed  the  Scrip 
tures  and  two  glimmering  lamps,  we  see  a  woman, 
plainly  attired,  as  befits  her  ripened  years  ;  her  hair, 
complexion,  and  eyes  are  dark,  the  latter  somewhat 
dull  and  heavy,  but  kindling  up  with  a  gradual  bright 
ness.  Let  us  look  round  upon  the  hearers.  At  her 
right  hand,  his  countenance  suiting  well  with  the 
gloomy  light  which  discovers  it,  stands  Vane,  the 
youthful  governor  preferred  by  a  hasty  judgment  of 
the  people  over  all  the  wise  and  hoary  heads  that  had 
preceded  him  to  New  England.  In  his  mysterious 
eyes  we  may  read  a  dark  enthusiasm,  akin  to  that  of 
the  woman  whose  cause  he  has  espoused,  combined 
with  a  shrewd  worldly  foresight,  which  tells  him  that 
her  doctrines  will  be  productive  of  change  and  tumult, 
the  elements  of  his  power  and  delight.  On  her  left, 
yet  slightly  drawn  back,  so  as  to  evince  a  less  decided 
support,  is  Cotton,  no  young  and  hot  enthusiast,  but  a 


MRS.  HUTCH1NSON.  221 

mild,  grave  man  in  the  decline  of  life,  deep  in  all  the 
learning  of  the  age,  and  sanctified  in  heart,  and  made 
Venerable  in  feature,  by  the  long  exercise  of  his  holy 
profession.  He,  also,  is  deceived  by  the  strange  fire 
now  laid  upon  the  altar;  and  he  alone  among  his 
brethren  is  excepted  in  the  denunciation  of  the  new 
apostle,  as  sealed  and  set  apart  by  Heaven  to  the  work 
of  the  ministry.  Others  of  the  priesthood  stand  full 
in  front  of  the  woman,  striving  to  beat  her  down  with 
brows  of  wrinkled  iron,  and  whispering  sternly  and 
significantly  among  themselves  as  she  unfolds  her  se 
ditious  doctrines,  and  grows  warm  in  their  support. 
Foremost  is  Hugh  Peters,  full  of  holy  wrath,  and 
scarce  containing  himself  from  rushing  forward  to  con 
vict  her  of  damnable  heresies.  There,  also,  is  Ward, 
meditating  a  reply  of  empty  puns,  and  quaint  antith 
eses,  and  tinkling  jests  that  puzzle  us  with  nothing 
but  a  sound.  The  audience  are  variously  affected ; 
but  none  are  indifferent.  On  the  foreheads  of  the 
aged,  the  mature,  and  strong-minded,  you  may  gener 
ally  read  steadfast  disapprobation,  though  here  and 
there  is  one  whose  faith  seems  shaken  in  those  whom 
he  had  trusted  for  years.  The  females,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  shuddering  and  weeping,  and  at  times  they 
cast  a  desolate  look  of  fear  around  them  ;  while  the 
young  men  lean  forward,  fiery  and  impatient,  fit  in 
struments  for  whatever  rash  deed  may  be  suggested. 
And  what  is  the  eloquence  that  gives  rise  to  all  these 
passions  ?  The  woman  tells  them  (and  cites  texts 
from  the  Holy  Book  to  prove  her  words)  that  they 
have  put  their  trust  in  unregenerated  and  uncommis 
sioned  men,  and  have  followed  them  into  the  wilder 
ness  for  nought.  Therefore  their  hearts  are  turning 
from  those  whom  they  had  chosen  to  lead  them  to 


222  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

heaven  ;  and  they  feel  like  children  who  have  been  en 
ticed  far  from  home,  and  see  the  features  of  their 
guides  change  all  at  once,  assuming  a  fiendish  shape 
in  some  frightful  solitude. 

These  proceedings  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson  could  not 
long  be  endured  by  the  provincial  government.  The 
present  was  a  most  remarkable  case,  in  which  religious 
freedom  was  wholly  inconsistent  with  public  safety, 
and  where  the  principles  of  an  illiberal  age  indicated 
the  very  course  which  must  have  been  pursued  by 
worldly  policy  and  enlightened  wisdom.  Unity  of 
faith  was  the  star  that  had  guided  these  people  over 
the  deep ;  and  a  diversity  of  sects  would  either  have 
scattered  them  from  the  land  to  which  they  had  as  yet 
so  few  attachments,  or,  perhaps,  have  excited  a  dimin 
utive  civil  war  among  those  who  had  come  so  far  to 
worship  together.  The  opposition  to  what  may  be 
termed  the  Established  Church  had  now  lost  its  chief 
support  by  the  removal  of  Yane  from  office,  and  his 
departure  for  England  ;  and  Mr.  Cotton  began  to  have 
that  light  in  regard  to  his  errors,  which  will  sometimes 
break  in  upon  the  wisest  and  most  pious  men,  when 
their  opinions  are  unhappily  discordant  with  those  of 
the  powers  that  be.  A  synod,  the  first  in  New  Eng 
land,  was  speedily  assembled,  and  pronounced  its  con 
demnation  of  the  obnoxious  doctrines.  Mrs.  Hutchin 
son  was  next  summoned  before  the  supreme  civil  tri 
bunal,  at  which,  however,  the  most  eminent  of  the 
clergy  were  present,  and  appear  to  have  taken  a  very 
active  part  as  witnesses  and  advisers.  We  shall  here 
resume  the  more  picturesque  style  of  narration. 

It  is  a  place  of  humble  aspect  where  the  elders  of 
the  people  are  met,  sitting  in  judgment  upon  the  dis 
turber  of  Israel.  The  floor  of  the  low  and  narrow 


MRS.  HUTCHINSON.  223 

hall  is  laid  with  planks  hewn  by  the  axe  ;  the  beams 
of  the  roof  still  wear  the  rugged  bark  with  which  they 
grew  up  in  the  forest ;  and  the  hearth  is  formed  of 
one  broad,  unhammered  stone,  heaped  with  logs  that 
roll  their  blaze  and  smoke  up  a  chimney  of  wood  and 
clay.  A  sleety  shower  beats  fitfully  against  the  win 
dows,  driven  by  the  November  blast,  which  comes 
howling  onward  from  the  northern  desert,  the  boister 
ous  and  unwelcome  herald  of  a  New  England  winter. 
Rude  benches  are  arranged  across  the  apartment,  and 
along  its  sides,  occupied  by  men  whose  piety  and  learn 
ing  might  have  entitled  them  to  seats  in  those  high 
councils  of  the  ancient  church,  whence  opinions  were 
sent  forth  to  confirm  or  supersede  the  gospel  in  the 
belief  of  the  whole  world  and  of  posterity.  Here 
are  collected  all  those  blessed  fathers  of  the  land,  who 
rank  in  our  veneration  next  to  the  evangelists  of  Holy 
Writ ;  and  here,  also,  are  many,  unpurified  from  the 
fiercest  errors  of  the  age,  and  ready  to  propagate  the 
religion  of  peace  by  violence.  In  the  highest  place 
sits  Winthrop,  —  a  man  by  whom  the  innocent  and 
guilty  might  alike  desire  to  be  judged  ;  the  first  con 
fiding  in  his  integrity  and  wisdom,  the  latter  hoping 
in  his  mildness.  Next  is  Endicott,  who  would  stand 
with  his  drawn  sword  at  the  gate  of  heaven,  and  resist 
to  the  death  all  pilgrims  thither,  except  they  travelled 
his  own  path.  The  infant  eyes  of  one  in  this  assembly 
beheld  the  fagots  blazing  round  the  martyrs  in  Bloody 
Mary's  time  ;  in  later  life  he  dwelt  long  at  Ley  den, 
with  the  first  who  went  from  England  for  conscience' 
sake  ;  and  now,  in  his  weary  age,  it  matters  little 
where  he  lies  down  to  die.  There  are  others  whose 
hearts  were  smitten  in  the  high  meridian  of  ambitious 
hope,  and  whose  dreams  still  tempt  them  with  the 


224  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

pomp  of  the  Old  World  and  the  din  of  its  crowded 
cities,  gleaming  and  echoing  over  the  deep.  In  the 
midst,  and  in  the  centre  of  all  eyes,  we  see  the  woman. 
She  stands  loftily  before  her  judges  with  a  determined 
brow ;  and,  unknown  to  herself,  there  is  a  flash  of  car 
nal  pride  half  hidden  in  her  eye,  as  she  surveys  the 
many  learned  and  famous  men  whom  her  doctrines 
have  put  in  fear.  They  question  her;  and  her  an 
swers  are  ready  and  acute :  she  reasons  with  them 
shrewdly,  and  brings  Scripture  in  support  of  every  ar 
gument.  The  deepest  controversialists  of  that  scholas 
tic  day  find  here  a  woman,  whom  all  their  trained  and 
sharpened  intellects  are  inadequate  to  foil.  But,  by 
the  excitement  of  the  contest,  her  heart  is  made  to  rise 
and  swell  within  her,  and  she  bursts  forth  into  elo 
quence.  She  tells  them  of  the  long  unquietness  which 
she  had  endured  in  England,  perceiving  the  corruption 
of  the  Church,  and  yearning  for  a  purer  and  more  per 
fect  light,  and  how,  in  a  day  of  solitary  prayer,  that 
light  was  given.  She  claims  for  herself  the  peculiar 
power  of  distinguishing  between  the  chosen  of  man 
and  the  sealed  of  Heaven,  and  affirms  that  her  gifted 
eye  can  see  the  glory  round  the  foreheads  of  saints,  so 
journing  in  their  mortal  state.  She  declares  herself 
commissioned  to  separate  the  true  shepherds  from  the 
false,  and  denounces  present  and  future  judgments  on 
the  land,  if  she  be  disturbed  in  her  celestial  errand. 
Thus  the  accusations  are  proved  from  her  own  mouth. 
Her  judges  hesitate,  and  some  speak  faintly  in  her  de 
fence  ;  but,  with  a  few  dissenting  voices,  sentence  is 
pronounced,  bidding  her  go  out  from  among  them,  and 
trouble  the  land  no  more. 

Mrs.  Hutchinson's  adherents  throughout  the  colony 
were  now  disarmed ;  and  she  proceeded  to  Rhode  Isl- 


MRS.  HUTCHINSON.  225 

and,  an  accustomed  refuge  for  the  exiles  of  Massa 
chusetts  in  all  seasons  of  persecution.  Her  enemies 
believed  that  the  anger  of  Heaven  was  following  her, 
of  which  Governor  Winthrop  does  not  disdain  to  re 
cord  a  notable  instance,  very  interesting  in  a  scientific 
point  of  view,  but  fitter  for  his  old  and  homely  narra 
tive  than  for  modern  repetition.  In  a  little  time,  also, 
she  lost  her  husband,  who  is  mentioned  in  history  only 
as  attending  her  footsteps,  and  whom  we  may  conclude 
to  have  been  (like  most  husbands  of  celebrated  wo 
men)  a  mere  insignificant  appendage  of  his  mightier 
wife.  She  now  grew  uneasy  away  from  the  Rhode  Isl 
and  colonists,  whose  liberality  towards  her,  at  an  era 
when  liberality  was  not  esteemed  a  Christian  virtue, 
probably  arose  from  a  comparative  insolicitude  on  re 
ligious  matters,  more  distasteful  to  Mrs.  Hutchinson 
than  even  the  uncompromising  narrowness  of  the  Pu 
ritans.  Her  final  movement  was  to  lead  her  family 
within  the  limits  of  the  Dutch  jurisdiction,  where, 
having  felled  the  trees  of  a  virgin  soil,  she  became 
herself  the  virtual  head,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  of  a 
little  colony. 

Perhaps  here  she  found  the  repose  hitherto  so  vainly 
sought.  Secluded  from  all  whose  faith  she  could  not 
govern,  surrounded  by  the  dependants  over  whom  she 
held  an  unlimited  influence,  agitated  by  none  of  the 
tumultuous  billows  which  were  left  swelling  behind 
her,  we  may  suppose  that,  in  the  stillness  of  Nature, 
her  heart  was  stilled.  But  her  impressive  story  was 
to  have  an  awful  close.  Her  last  scene  is  as  difficult 
to  be  described  as  a  shipwreck,  where  the  shrieks  of 
the  victims  die  unheard,  along  a  desolate  sea,  and  a 
shapeless  mass  of  agony  is  all  that  can  be  broughi 
home  to  the  imagination.  The  savage  foe  was  on  the 

VOL.  XII.  15 


226  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

watch  for  blood.  Sixteen  persons  assembled  at  the 
evening  prayer :  in  the  deep  midnight  their  cry  rang 
through  the  forest ;  and  daylight  dawned  upon  the 
lifeless  clay  of  all  but  one.  It  was  a  circumstance 
not  to  be  unnoticed  by  our  stern  ancestors,  in  consid 
ering  the  fate  of  her  who  had  so  troubled  their  relig 
ion,  that  an  infant  daughter,  the  sole  survivor  amid 
the  terrible  destruction  of  her  mother's  household,  was 
bred  in  a  barbarous  faith,  and  never  learned  the  way 
to  the  Christian's  heaven.  Yet  we  will  hope  that  there 
the  mother  and  child  have  met. 


SIR  WILLIAM  PHIPS. 

FEW  of  the  personages  of  past  times  (except  such 
as  have  gained  renown  in  fireside  legends  as  well  as 
in  written  history)  are  anything  more  than  mere 
names  to  their  successors.  They  seldom  stand  up  in 
our  imaginations  like  men.  The  knowledge  commu 
nicated  by  the  historian  and  biographer  is  analogous 
to  that  which  we  acquire  of  a  country  by  the  map,  — 
minute,  perhaps,  and  accurate,  and  available  for  all 
necessary  purposes,  but  cold  and  naked,  and  wholly 
destitute  of  the  mimic  charm  produced  by  landscape- 
painting.  These  defects  are  partly  remediable,  and 
even  without  an  absolute  violation  of  literal  truth, 
although  by  methods  rightfully  interdicted  to  profes 
sors  of  biographical  exactness.  A  license  must  be  as 
sumed  in  brightening  the  materials  which  time  has 
rusted,  and  in  tracing  out  half-obliterated  inscriptions 
on  the  columns  of  antiquity  :  Fancy  must  throw  her 
reviving  light  on  the  faded  incidents  that  indicate 
character,  whence  a  ray  will  be  reflected,  more  or  less 
vividly,  on  the  person  to  be  described.  The  portrait 
of  the  ancient  governor  whose  name  stands  at  the 
head  of  this  article  will  owe  any  interest  it  may  pos 
sess,  not  to  his  internal  self,  but  to  certain  peculiari 
ties  of  his  fortune.  These  must  be  briefly  noticed. 

The  birth  and  early  life  of  Sir  William  Phips  were 
rather  an  extraordinary  prelude  to  his  subsequent  dis 
tinction.  He  was  one  of  the  twenty-six  children  of  a 
gunsmith,  who  exercised  his  trade  —  where  hunting 


228  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

and  war  must  have  given  it  a  full  encouragement  — 
in  a  small  frontier  settlement  near  the  mouth  of  the 
river  Kennebec.  Within  the  boundaries  of  the  Pu 
ritan  provinces,  and  wherever  those  governments  ex 
tended  an  effectual  sway,  no  depth  nor  solitude  of  the 
wilderness  could  exclude  youth  from  all  the  common 
opportunities  of  moral,  and  far  more  than  common 
ones  of  religious  education.  Each  settlement  of  the 
Pilgrims  was  a  little  piece  of  the  Old  World  inserted 
into  the  New.  It  was  like  Gideon's  fleece,  unwet  with 
dew :  the  desert  wind  that  breathed  over  it  left  none 
of  its  wild  influences  there.  But  the  first  settlers  of 
Maine  and  New  Hampshire  were  led  thither  entirely 
by  carnal  motives :  their  governments  were  feeble,  un 
certain,  sometimes  nominally  annexed  to  their  sister 
colonies,  and  sometimes  asserting  a  troubled  indepen 
dence.  Their  rulers  might  be  deemed,  in  more  than 
one  instance,  lawless  adventurers,  who  found  that  se 
curity  in  the  forest  which  they  had  forfeited  in  Eu 
rope.  Their  clergy  (unlike  that  revered  band  who 
acquired  so  singular  a  fame  elsewhere  in  New  Eng 
land)  were  too  often  destitute  of  the  religious  fervor 
which  should  have  kept  them  in  the  track  of  virtue,  un 
aided  by  the  restraints  of  human  law  and  the  dread  of 
worldly  dishonor ;  and  there  are  records  of  lamentable 
lapses  on  the  part  of  those  holy  men,  which,  if  we  may 
argue  the  disorder  of  the  sheep  from  the  unfitness  of 
the  shepherd,  tell  a  sad  tale  as  to  the  morality  of  the 
eastern  provinces.  In  this  state  of  society,  the  future 
governor  grew  up  ;  and  many  years  after,  sailing  with 
a  fleet  and  an  army  to  make  war  upon  the  French, 
he  pointed  out  the  very  hills  where  he  had  reached 
the  age  of  manhood,  unskilled  even  to  read  and  write. 
The  contrast  between  the  commencement  and  close  of 


SIR    WILLIAM  PHIPS.  229 

his  life  was  the  effect  of  casual  circumstances.  During 
a  considerable  time,  he  was  a  mariner,  at  a  period 
when  there  was  much  license  on  the  high-seas.  After 
attaining  to  some  rank  in  the  English  navy,  he  heard 
of  an  ancient  Spanish  wreck  off  the  coast  of  His- 
paniola,  of  such  mighty  value,  that,  according  to  the 
stories  of  the  day,  the  sunken  gold  might  be  seen  to 
glisten,  and  the  diamonds  to  flash,  as  the  triumphant 
billows  tossed  about  their  spoil.  These  treasures  of 
the  deep  (by  the  aid  of  certain  noblemen  who  claimed 
the  lion's  share)  Sir  William  Phips  sought  for,  and 
recovered,  and  was  sufficiently  enriched,  even  after  an 
honest  settlement  with  the  partners  of  his  adventure. 
That  the  land  might  give  him  honor,  as  the  sea  had 
given  him  wealth,  he  received  knighthood  from  King 
James.  Returning  to  New  England,  he  professed  re 
pentance  of  his  sins  (of  which,  from  the  nature  both 
of  his  early  and  more  recent  life,  there  could  scarce 
fail  to  be  some  slight  accumulation),  was  baptized, 
and,  on  the  accession  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  to  the 
throne,  became  the  first  governor  under  the  second 
charter.  And  now,  having  arranged  these  prelimi 
naries,  we  shall  attempt  to  picture  forth  a  day  of  Sir 
William's  life,  introducing  no  very  remarkable  events, 
because  history  supplies  us  with  none  such  convertible 
to  our  purpose. 

It  is  the  forenoon  of  a  day  in  summer,  shortly  after 
the  governor's  arrival ;  and  he  stands  upon  his  door 
steps,  preparatory  to  a  walk  through  the  metropolis. 
Sir  William  is  a  stout  man,  an  inch  or  two  below  the 
middle  size,  and  rather  beyond  the  middle  point  of 
life.  His  dress  is  of  velvet,  —  a  dark  purple,  broadly 
embroidered ;  and  his  sword-hilt  and  the  lion's  head 
of  his  cane  display  specimens  of  the  gold  from  the 


230  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

Spanish  wreck.  On  his  head,  in  the  fashion  of  the 
court  of  Louis  XIV.,  is  a  superb,  full-bottomed  peri 
wig,  amid  whose  heap  of  ringlets  his  face  shows  like  a 
rough  pebble  in  the  setting  that  befits  a  diamond. 
Just  emerging  from  the  door  are  two  footmen,  —  one 
an  African  slave  of  shining  ebony,  the  other  an  Eng 
lish  bond-servant,  the  property  of  the  governor  for  a 
term  of  years.  As  Sir  William  comes  down  the  steps, 
he  is  met  by  three  elderly  gentlemen  in  black,  grave 
and  solemn  as  three  tombstones  on  a  ramble  from  the 
burying  -  ground.  These  are  ministers  of  the  town, 
among  whom  we  recognize  Dr.  Increase  Mather,  the 
late  provincial  agent  at  the  English  court,  the  author 
of  the  present  governor's  appointment,  and  the  right 
arm  of  his  administration.  Here  follow  many  bows 
and  a  deal  of  angular  politeness  on  both  sides.  Sir 
William  professes  his  anxiety  to  reenter  the  house, 
and  give  audience  to  the  reverend  gentlemen :  they,  on 
the  other  hand,  cannot  think  of  interrupting  his  walk  ; 
and  the  courteous  dispute  is  concluded  by  a  junction 
of  the  parties ;  Sir  William  and  Dr.  Mather  setting 
forth  side  by  side,  the  two  other  clergymen  forming 
the  centre  of  the  column,  and  the  black  and  white 
footmen  bringing  up  the  rear.  The  business  in  hand 
relates  to  the  dealings  of  Satan  in  the  town  of  Salem. 
Upon  this  subject,  the  principal  ministers  of  the  prov 
ince  have  been  consulted ;  and  these  three  eminent 
persons  are  their  deputies,  commissioned  to  express  a 
doubtful  opinion,  implying,  upon  the  whole,  an  exhor 
tation  to  speedy  and  vigorous  measures  against  the  ac 
cused.  To  such  counsels  Sir  William,  bred  in  the 
forest  and  on  the  ocean,  and  tinctured  with  the  super 
stition  of  both,  is  well  inclined  to  listen. 

As  the  dignitaries  of  Church  and  State  make  their 


SIR    WILLIAM  P II IPS.  231 

way  beneath  the  overhanging  houses,  the  lattices  are 
thrust  ajar,  and  you  may  discern,  just  in  the  boun 
daries  of  light  and  shade,  the  prim  faces  of  the  little 
Puritan  damsels,  eying  the  magnificent  governor,  and 
envious  of  the  bolder  curiosity  of  the  men.  Another 
object  of  almost  equal  interest  now  appears  in  the  mid 
dle  of  the  way.  It  is  a  man  clad  in  a  hunting-shirt 
and  Indian  stockings,  and  armed  with  a  long  gun. 
His  feet  have  been  wet  with  the  waters  of  many  an 
inland  lake  and  stream ;  and  the  leaves  and  twigs  of 
the  tangled  wilderness  are  intertwined  with  his  gar 
ments  :  on  his  head  he  wears  a  trophy  which  we  would 
not  venture  to  record  without  good  evidence  of  the 
fact,  —  a  wig  made  of  the  long  and  straight  black  hair 
of  his  slain  savage  enemies.  This  grim  old  heathen 
stands  bewildered  in  the  midst  of  King  Street.  The 
governor  regards  him  attentively,  and,  recognizing  a 
playmate  of  his  youth,  accosts  him  with  a  gracious 
smile,  inquires  as  to  the  prosperity  of  their  birthplace, 
and  the  life  or  death  of  their  ancient  neighbors,  and 
makes  appropriate  remarks  on  the  different  stations 
allotted  by  fortune  to  two  individuals  born  and  bred 
beside  the  same  wild  river.  Finally  he  puts  into  his 
hand,  at  parting,  a  shilling  of  the  Massachusetts  coin 
age,  stamped  with  the  figure  of  a  stubbed  pine-tree, 
mistaken  by  King  Charles  for  the  oak,  which  saved 
his  royal  life.  Then  all  the  people  praise  the  humility 
and  bountifulness  of  the  good  governor,  who  struts  on 
ward  flourishing  his  gold-headed  cane ;  while  the  gen 
tleman  in  the  straight  black  wig  is  left  with  a  pretty 
accurate  idea  of  the  distance  between  himself  and  his 
old  companion. 

Meantime,  Sir  William  steers  his  course  towards  the 
town  dock.     A  gallant  figure  is  seen  approaching  on 


232  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

the  opposite  side  of  the  street,  in  a  naval  uniform  pro 
fusely  laced,  and  with  a  cutlass  swinging  by  his  side. 
This  is  Captain  Short,  the  commander  of  a  frigate  in 
the  service  of  the  English  king,  now  lying  in  the  har 
bor.  Sir  William  bristles  up  at  sight  of  him,  and 
crosses  the  street  with  a  lowering  front,  unmindful  of 
the  hints  of  Dr.  Mather,  who  is  aware  of  an  unsettled 
dispute  between  the  captain  and  the  governor,  relative 
to  the  authority  of  the  latter  over  a  king's  ship  on  the 
provincial  station.  Into  this  thorny  subject,  Sir  Wil 
liam  plunges  headlong.  The  captain  makes  answer 
with  less  deference  than  the  dignity  of  the  potentate 
requires  :  the  affair  grows  hot ;  and  the  clergymen  en 
deavor  to  interfere  in  the  blessed  capacity  of  peace 
makers.  The  governor  lifts  his  cane  ;  and  the  cap 
tain  lays  his  hand  upon  his  sword,  but  is  prevented 
from  drawing  by  the  zealous  exertions  of  Dr.  Mather. 
There  is  a  furious  stamping  of  feet,  and  a  mighty  up 
roar  from  every  mouth,  in  the  midst  of  which  his  Ex 
cellency  inflicts  several  very  sufficient  whacks  on  the 
head  of  the  unhappy  Short.  Having  thus  avenged 
himself  by  manual  force,  as  befits  a  woodman  and  a 
mariner,  he  vindicates  the  insulted  majesty  of  the  gov 
ernor  by  committing  his  antagonist  to  prison.  This 
done,  Sir  William  removes  his  periwig,  wipes  away 
the  sweat  of  the  encounter,  and  gradually  composes 
himself,  giving  vent  to  a  few  oaths,  like  the  subsiding 
ebullitions  of  a  pot  that  has  boiled  over. 

It  being  now  near  twelve  o'clock,  the  three  ministers 
are  bidden  to  dinner  at  the  governor's  table,  where  the 
party  is  completed  by  a  few  Old  Charter  senators,  — 
men  reared  at  the  feet  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  who  re 
member  the  days  when  Cromwell  was  a  nursing-father 
to  New  England.  Sir  William  presides  with  com- 


SIR    WILLIAM  PIIIPS.  233 

mendable  decorum  till  grace  is  said  and  the  cloth  re 
moved.  Then,  as  the  grape-juice  glides  warm  into 
the  ventricles  of  his  heart,  it  produces  a  change,  like 
that  of  a  running  stream  upon  enchanted  shapes  ;  and 
the  rude  man  of  the  sea  and  wilderness  appears  in  the 
very  chair  where  the  stately  governor  sat  down.  He 
overflows  with  jovial  tales  of  the  forecastle  and  of  his 
father's  hut,  and  stares  to  see  the  gravity  of  his  guests 
become  more  and  more  portentous  in  exact  proportion 
as  his  own  merriment  increases.  A  noise  of  drum  and 
fife  fortunately  breaks  up  the  session. 

The  governor  and  his  guests  go  forth,  like  men 
bound  upon  some  grave  business,  to  inspect  the  train 
bands  of  the  town.  A  great  crowd  of  people  is  col 
lected  on  the  Common,  composed  of  whole  families, 
from  the  hoary  grandsire  to  the  child  of  three  years. 
All  ages  and  both  sexes  look  with  interest  on  the  ar 
ray  of  their  defenders  ;  and  here  and  there  stand  a 
few  dark  Indians  in  their  blankets,  dull  spectators  ef 
the  strength  that  has  swept  away  their  race.  The  sol 
diers  wear  a  proud  and  martial  mien,  conscious  that 
beauty  will  reward  them  with  her  approving  glances  ; 
not  to  mention  that  there  are  a  few  less  influential  mo 
tives  to  contribute  to  keep  up  an  heroic  spirit,  such  as 
the  dread  of  being  made  to  "  ride  the  wooden  horse  " 
(a  very  disagreeable  mode  of  equestrian  exercise,— 
hard  riding,  in  the  strictest  sense),  or  of  being  "  laid 
neck  and  heels,"  in  a  position  of  more  compendious- 
ness  than  comfort.  Sir  William  perceives  some  error 
in  their  tactics,  and  places  himself  with  drawn  sword 
at  their  head.  After  a  variety  of  weary  evolutions, 
evening  begins  to  fall,  like  the  veil  of  gray  and  misty 
years  that  have  rolled  betwixt  that  warlike  band  and 


234  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

us.  They  are  drawn  into  a  hollow  square,  the  officers 
in  the  centre  ;  and  the  governor  (for  John  Dunton's 
authority  will  bear  us  out  in  this  particular)  leans  his 
hands  upon  his  sword-hilt,  and  closes  the  exercises  of 
the  day  with  a  prayer. 


SIR  WILLIAM  PEPPERELL. 

THE  mighty  man  of  Kittery  has  a  double  claim  to 
remembrance.  He  was  a  famous  general,  the  most 
prominent  military  character  in  our  ante-Revolution 
ary  annals ;  and  he  may  be  taken  as  the  representa 
tive  of  a  class  of  warriors  peculiar  to  their  age  and 
country,  —  true  citizen-soldiers,  who  diversified  a  life 
of  commerce  or  agriculture  by  the  episode  of  a  city 
sacked,  or  a  battle  won,  and,  having  stamped  their 
names  on  the  page  of  history,  went  back  to  the  routine 
of  peaceful  occupation.  Sir  William  PepperelTs  letters, 
written  at  the  most  critical  period  of  his  career,  and 
his  conduct  then  and  at  other  times,  indicate  a  man 
of  plain  good  sense,  with  a  large  share  of  quiet  reso 
lution,  and  but  little  of  an  enterprising  spirit,  unless 
aroused  by  external  circumstances.  The  Methodistic 
principles,  with  which  he  was  slightly  tinctured,  in 
stead  of  impelling  him  to  extravagance,  assimilated 
themselves  to  his  orderly  habits  of  thought  and  action. 
Thus  respectably  endowed,  we  find  him,  when  near 
the  age  of  fifty,  a  merchant  of  weight  in  foreign  and 
domestic  trade,  a  provincial  counsellor,  and  colonel  of 
the  York  County  militia,  filling  a  large  space  in  the 
eyes  of  his  generation,  but  likely  to  gain  no  other  post 
humous  memorial  than  the  letters  on  his  tombstone, 
because  undistinguished  from  the  many  worshipful 
gentlemen  who  had  lived  prosperously  and  died  peace 
fully  before  him.  But  in  the  year  1745,  an  expedition 
was  projected  against  Louisburg,  a  walled  city  of  the 


236  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

French  in  the  island  of  Cape  Breton.  The  idea  of  re 
ducing  this  strong*  fortress  was  conceived  by  William 
Vaughan,  a  bold,  energetic,  and  imaginative  adven 
turer,  and  adopted  by  Governor  Shirley,  the  most 
bustling,  though  not  the  wisest,  ruler,  that  ever  pre 
sided  over  Massachusetts.  His  influence  at  its  utmost 
stretch  carried  the  measure  by  a  majority  of  only  one 
vote  in  the  legislature  :  the  other  New  England  prov 
inces  consented  to  lend  their  assistance  ;  and  the  next 
point  was  to  select  a  commander  from  among  the  gen 
tlemen  of  the  country,  none  of  whom  had  the  least  par 
ticle  of  scientific  soldiership,  although  some  were  ex 
perienced  in  the  irregular  warfare  of  the  frontiers. 
In  the  absence  of  the  usual  qualifications  for  military 
rank,  the  choice  was  guided  by  other  motives,  and  fell 
upon  Colonel  Pepperell,  who,  as  a  landed  proprietor 
in  three  provinces,  and  popular  with  all  classes  of  peo 
ple,  might  draw  the  greatest  number  of  recruits  to  his 
banner.  When  this  doubtful  speculation  was  pro 
posed  to  the  prudeijt  merchant,  he  sought  advice  from 
the  celebrated  Whitefield,  then  an  itinerant  preacher 
in  the  country,  and  an  object  of  vast  antipathy  to 
many  of  the  settled  ministers.  The  response  of  the 
apostle  of  Methodism,  though  dark  as  those  of  the 
Oracle  of  Delphos,  intimating  that  the  blood  of  the 
slain  would  be  laid  to  Colonel  Pepperell's  charge  in 
case  of  failure,  and  that  the  envy  of  the  living  would 
persecute  him  if  victorious,  decided  him  to  gird  on  his 
armor.  That  the  French  might  be  taken  unawares, 
the  legislature  had  been  laid  under  an  oath  of  secrecy 
while  their  deliberations  should  continue ;  this  precau 
tion,  however,  was  nullified  by  the  pious  perjury  of  a 
country  member  of  the  lower  house,  who,  in  the  per 
formance  of  domestic  worship  at  his  lodgings,  broke 


Sill    WILLIAM  PEPPERELL.  237 

into  a  fervent  and  involuntary  petition  for  the  success 
of  the  enterprise  against  Louisburg.  We  of  the  pres 
ent  generation,  whose  hearts  have  never  been  heated 
and  amalgamated  by  one  universal  passion,  and  who 
are,  perhaps,  less  excitable  in  the  mass  than  our 
fathers,  cannot  easily  conceive  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  the  people  seized  upon  the  project.  A  desire  to 
prove  in  the  eyes  of  England  the  courage  of  her  prov 
inces  ;  the  real  necessity  for  the  destruction  of  this 
Dunkirk  of  America ;  the  hope  of  private  advantage  ; 
a  remnant  of  the  old  Puritan  detestation  of  Papist 
idolatry  ;  a  strong  hereditary  hatred  of  the  French, 
who,  for  half  a  hundred  years,  had  shed  the  blood  of 
the  English  settlers  in  concert  with  the  savages  ;  the 
natural  proneness  of  the  New-Englanders  to  engage  in 
temporary  undertakings,  even  though  doubtful  and 
hazardous,  —  such  were  some  of  the  motives  which 
soon  drew  together  a  host,  comprehending  nearly  all 
the  effective  force  of  the  country.  The  officers  were 
grave  deacons,  justices  of  the  peace,  and  other  similar 
dignitaries ;  and  in  the  ranks  were  many  warm  house 
holders,  sons  of  rich  farmers,  mechanics  in  thriving 
business,  husbands  weary  of  their  wives,  and  bachelors 
disconsolate  for  want  of  them.  The  disciples  of  White- 
field  also  turned  their  excited  imaginations  in  this  di 
rection,  and  increased  the  resemblance  borne  by  the 
provincial  army  to  the  motley  assemblages  of  the  first 
Crusaders.  A  part  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  affair 
may  be  grouped  in  one  picture,  by  selecting  the  mo 
ment  of  General  Pepperell's  embarkation. 

It  is  a  bright  and  breezy  day  of  March  ;  and  about 
twenty  small  white  clouds  are  scudding  seaward  before 
the  wind,  airy  forerunners  of  the  fleet  of  privateers  and 
transports  that  spread  their  sails  to  the  sunshine  in  the 


238  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

harbor.  The  tide  is  at  its  height ;  and  the  gunwale  of  a 
barge  alternately  rises  above  the  wharf,  and  then  sinks 
from  view,  as  it  lies  rocking  on  the  waves  in  readiness 
to  convey  the  general  and  his  suite  on  board  the  Shir 
ley  galley.  In  the  background,  the  dark  wooden  dwell 
ings  of  the  town  have  poured  forth  their  inhabitants  ; 
and  this  way  rolls  an  earnest  throng,  with  the  great 
man  of  the  day  walking  in  the  midst.  Before  him 
struts  a  guard  of  honor,  selected  from  the  yeomanry 
of  his  own  neighborhood,  and  stout  young  rustics  in 
their  Sunday  clothes ;  next  appear  six  figures  who  de 
mand  our  more  minute  attention.  He  in  the  centre  is 
the  general,  a  well-proportioned  man,  with  a  slight 
hoar-frost  of  age  just  visible  upon  him  ;  he  views  the 
fleet  in  which  he  is  about  to  embark  with  no  stronger 

o 

expression  than  a  calm  anxiety,  as  if  he  were  sending 
a  freight  of  his  own  merchandise  to  Europe.  A  scar 
let  British  uniform,  made  of  the  best  of  broadcloth,  be 
cause  imported  by  himself,  adorns  his  person ;  and  in 
the  left  pocket  of  a  large  buff  waistcoat,  near  the  pom 
mel  of  his  sword,  we  see  the  square  protuberance  of 
a  small  Bible,  which  certainly  may  benefit  his  pious 
soul,  and,  perchance,  may  keep  a  bullet  from  his  body. 
The  middle-aged  gentleman  at  his  right  hand,  to  whom 
he  pays  such  grave  attention,  in  silk,  gold,  and  velvet, 
and  with  a  pair  of  spectacles  thrust  above  his  fore 
head,  is  Governor  Shirley.  The  quick  motion  of  his 
small  eyes  in  their  puckered  sockets,  his  grasp  on  one 
of  the  general's  bright  military  buttons,  the  gesticula 
tion  of  his  forefinger,  keeping  time  with  the  earnest 
rapidity  of  his  words,  have  all  something  characteris 
tic.  His  mind  is  calculated  to  fill  up  the  wild  concep 
tions  of  other  men  with  its  own  minute  ingenuities ; 
and  he  seeks,  as  it  were,  to  climb  up  to  the  moon  by 


SIR    WILLIAM  PEPPERELL.  239 

piling  pebble-stones  one  upon  another.  He  is  now  im 
pressing  on  the  general's  recollection  the  voluminous 
details  of  a  plan  for  surprising  Louisburg  in  the  depth 
of  midnight,  and  thus  to  finish  the  campaign  within 
twelve  hours  after  the  arrival  of  the  troops.  On  the 
left,  forming  a  striking  contrast  with  the  unruffled  de 
portment  of  Pepperell,  and  the  fidgety  vehemence  of 
Shirley,  is  the  martial  figure  of  Yaughan :  with  one 
hand  he  has  seized  the  general's  arm  ;  and  he  points 
the  other  to  the  sails  of  the  vessel  fluttering  in  the 
breeze,  while  the  fire  of  his  inward  enthusiasm  glows 
through  his  dark  complexion,  and  flashes  in  tips  of 
flame  from  his  eyes.  Another  pale  and  emaciated  per 
son,  in  neglected  and  scarcely  decent  attire,  and  distin 
guished  by  the  abstracted  fervor  of  his  manner,  presses 
through  the  crowd,  and  attempts  to  lay  hold  of  Pep 
perell' s  skirt.  He  has  spent  years  in  wild  and  shad 
owy  studies,  and  has  searched  the  crucible  of  the  alche 
mist  for  gold,  and  wasted  the  life  allotted  him,  in  a 
weary  effort  to  render  it  immortal.  The  din  of  war 
like  preparation  has  broken  in  upon  his  solitude ;  and 
he  comes  forth  with  a  fancy  of  his  half -maddened 
brain,  —  the  model  of  a  flying  bridge,  —  by  which  the 
army  is  to  be  transported  into  the  heart  of  the  hostile 
fortress  with  the  celerity  of  magic.  But  who  is  this, 
of  the  mild  and  venerable  countenance  shaded  by  locks 
of  a  hallowed  whiteness,  looking  like  Peace  with  its 
gentle  thoughts  in  the  midst  of  uproar  and  stern  de 
signs  ?  It  is  the  minister  of  an  inland  parish,  who, 
after  much  prayer  and  fasting,  advised  by  the  elders 
of  the  church  and  the  wife  of  his  bosom,  has  taken 
his  staff,  and  journeyed  townward.  The  benevolent 
old  man  would  fain  solicit  the  general's  attention  to 
a  method  of  avoiding  danger  from  the  explosion  of 


240  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

mines,  and  of  overcoming  the  city  without  bloodshed 
of  friend  or  enemy.  We  start  as  we  turn  from  this 
picture  of  Christian  love  to  the  dark  enthusiast  close 
beside  him,  —  a  preacher  of  the  new  sect,  in  every 
wrinkled  line  of  whose  visage  we  can  read  the  stormy 
passions  that  have  chosen  religion  for  their  outlet. 
Woe  to  the  wretch  that  shall  seek  mercy  there  !  At 
his  back  is  slung  an  axe,  wherewith  he  goes  to  hew 
down  the  carved  altars  and  idolatrous  images  in  the 
Popish  churches ;  and  over  his  head  he  rears  a  ban 
ner,  which,  as  the  wind  unfolds  it,  displays  the  motto 
given  by  Whitefield,  —  Christo  Duce,  —  in  letters  red 
as  blood.  But  the  tide  is  now  ebbing ;  and  the  gen 
eral  makes  his  adieus  to  the  governor,  and  enters  the 
boat :  it  bounds  swiftly  over  the  waves,  the  holy  ban 
ner  fluttering  in  the  bows:  a  huzza  from  the  fleet 
comes  riotously  to  the  shore  ;  and  the  people  thunder 
back  their  many-voiced  reply. 

When  the  expedition  sailed,  the  projectors  could  not 
reasonably  rely  on  assistance  from  the  mother-country. 
At  Canso,  however,  the  fleet  was  strengthened  by  a 
squadron  of  British  ships-of-the-line  and  frigates,  un 
der  Commodore  Warren ;  and  this  circumstance  un 
doubtedly  prevented  a  discomfiture,  although  the  active 
business,  and  all  the  dangers  of  the  siege,  fell  to  the 
share  of  the  provincials.  If  we  had  any  confidence 
that  it  could  be  done  with  half  so  much  pleasure  to 
the  reader  as  to  ourself ,  we  would  present  a  whole  gal 
lery  of  pictures  from  these  rich  and  fresh  historic 
scenes.  Never,  certainly,  since  man  first  indulged  his 
instinctive  appetite  for  war,  did  a  queerer  and  less 
manageable  host  sit  down  before  a  hostile  city.  The 
officers,  drawn  from  the  same  class  of  citizens  with  the 
rank  and  file,  had  neither  the  power  to  institute  an 


SIR    WILLIAM  PEPPERELL.  241 

awful  discipline,  nor  enough  of  the  trained  soldier's 
spirit  to  attempt  it.  Of  headlong  valor,  when  occa 
sion  offered,  there  was  no  lack,  nor  of  a  readiness  to 
encounter  severe  fatigue  ;  but,  with  few  intermissions, 
the  provincial  army  made  the  siege  one  long  day  of 
frolic  and  disorder.  Conscious  that  no  military  vir 
tues  of  their  own  deserved  the  prosperous  result  which 
followed,  they  insisted  that  Heaven  had  fought  as  man 
ifestly  on  their  side  as  ever  on  that  of  Israel  in  the 
battles  of  the  Old  Testament.  We,  however,  if  we 
consider  the  events  of  after-years,  and  confine  our  view 
to  a  period  short  of  the  Revolution,  might  doubt 
whether  the  victory  was  granted  to  our  fathers  as  a 
blessing  or  as  a  judgment.  Most  of  the  young  men 
who  had  left  their  paternal  firesides,  sound  in  constitu 
tion,  and  pure  in  morals,  if  they  returned  at  all,  re 
turned  with  ruined  health,  and  with  minds  so  broken 
up  by  the  interval  of  riot,  that  they  never  after  could 
resume  the  habits  of  good  citizenship.  A  lust  for  mil 
itary  glory  was  also  awakened  in  the  country ;  and 
France  and  England  gratified  it  with  enough  of 
slaughter;  the  former  seeking  to  recover  what  she 
had  lost,  the  latter  to  complete  the  conquest  which  the 
colonists  had  begun.  There  was  a  brief  season  of  re 
pose,  and  then  a  fiercer  contest,  raging  almost  from 
end  to  end  of  North  America.  Some  went  forth,  and 
met  the  red  men  of  the  wilderness ;  and  when  years 
had  rolled,  and  the  settler  came  in  peace  where  they 
had  come  in  war,  there  he  found  their  unburied  bones 
among  the  fallen  boughs  and  withered  leaves  of  many 
autumns.  Others  were  foremost  in  the  battles  of  the 
Canadas,  till,  in  the  day  that  saw  the  downfall  of  the 
French  dominion,  they  poured  their  blood  with  Wolfe 
on  the  Heights  of  Abraham.  Through  all  this  troubled 

VOL.    XII.  16 


242  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

time,  the  flower  of  the  youth  were  cut  down  by  the 
sword,  or  died  of  physical  diseases,  or  became  unprof 
itable  citizens  by  moral  ones  contracted  in  the  camp 
and  field.  Dr.  Douglass,  a  shrewd  Scotch  physician 
of  the  last  century,  who  died  before  war  had  gathered 
in  half  its  harvest,  computes  that  many  thousand 
blooming  damsels,  capable  and  well  inclined  to  serve 
the  state  as  wives  and  mothers,  were  compelled  to  lead 
lives  of  barren  celibacy  by  the  consequences  of  the 
successful  siege  of  Louisburg.  But  we  will  not  sad 
den  ourselves  with  these  doleful  thoughts,  when  we 
are  to  witness  the  triumphal  entry  of  the  victors  into 
the  surrendered  town. 

The  thundering  of  drums,  irregularly  beaten,  grows 
more  and  more  distinct,  and  the  shattered  strength  of 
the  western  wall  of  Louisburg  stretches  out  before  the 
eye,  forty  feet  in  height,  and  far  overtopped  by  a  rock- 
built  citadel.  In  yonder  breach  the  broken  timber, 
fractured  stones,  and  crumbling  earth  prove  the  effect 
of  the  provincial  cannon.  The  drawbridge  is  down 
over  the  wide  moat ;  the  gate  is  open ;  and  the  gen 
eral  and  British  commodore  are  received  by  the  French 
authorities  beneath  the  dark  and  lofty  portal  arch. 
Through  the  massive  gloom  of  this  deep  avenue  there 
is  a  vista  of  the  main  street,  bordered  by  high  peaked 
houses,  in  the  fashion  of  old  France ;  the  view  is  ter 
minated  by  the  centre  square  of  the  city,  in  the  midst 
of  which  rises  a  stone  cross ;  and  shaven  monks,  and 
women  with  their  children,  are  kneeling  at  its  foot. 
A  confused  sobbing  and  half-stifled  shrieks  are  heard, 
as  the  tumultuous  advance  of  the  conquering  army  be 
comes  audible  to  those  within  the  walls.  By  the  light 
which  falls  through  the  archway,  we  perceive  that  a 
few  months  have  somewhat  changed  the  general's 


SIR    WILLIAM  .PEPPERELL.  243 

mien,  giving  it  the  freedom  of  one  acquainted  with 
peril,  and  accustomed  to  command;  nor,  amid  hopes 
of  more  solid  reward,  does  he  appear  insensible  to  the 
thought  that  posterity  will  remember  his  name  among 
those  renowned  in  arms.  Sir  Peter  Warren,  who  re 
ceives  with  him  the  enemy's  submission,  is  a  rough 
and  haughty  English  seaman,  greedy  of  fame,  but 
despising  those  who  have  won  it  for  him.  Pressing 
forward  to  the  portal,  sword  in  hand,  comes  a  comical 
figure  in  a  brown  suit,  and  blue  yarn  stockings,  with  a 
huge  frill  sticking  forth  from  his  bosom,  to  which  the 
whole  man  seems  an  appendage :  this  is  that  famous 
worthy  of  Plymouth  County,  who  went  to  the  war 
with  two  plain  shirts  and  a  ruffled  one,  and  is  now 
about  to  solicit  the  post  of  governor  in  Louistmrg.  In 
close  vicinity  stands  Vaughan,  worn  down  with  toil 
and  exposure,  the  effect  of  which  has  fallen  upon  Mm 
at  once  in  the  moment  of  accomplished  hope.  The 
group  is  filled  up  by  several  British  officers,  who  fold 
their  arms,  and  look  with  scornful  merriment  at  the 
provincial  army,  as  it  stretches  far  behind  in  garments 
of  every  hue,  resembling  an  immense  strip  of  patch 
work  carpeting  thrown  down  over  the  uneven  ground. 
In  the  nearer  ranks  we  may  discern  the  variety  of 
ingredients  that  compose  the  mass.  Here  advance 
a  row  of  stern,  immitigable  fanatics,  each  of  whom 
clinches  his  teeth,  and  grasps  his  weapon  with  a  fist 
of  iron,  at  sight  of  the  temples  of  the  ancient  faith, 
with  the  sunlight  glittering  on  their  cross  -  crowned 
spires.  Others  examine  the  surrounding  country,  and 
send  scrutinizing  glances  through  the  gateway,  anx 
ious  to  select  a  spot,  whither  the  good  woman  and  her 
little  ones  in  the  Bay  Province  may  be  advantageously 
transported.  Some,  who  drag  their  diseased  limbs  for- 


244  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

ward  in  weariness  and  pain,  have  made  the  wretched 
exchange  of  health  or  life  for  what  share  of  fleeting 
glory  may  fall  to  them  among  four  thousand  men. 
But  these  are  all  exceptions,  and  the  exulting  feelings 
of  the  general  host  combine  in  an  expression  like  that 
of  a  broad  laugh  on  an  honest  countenance.  They  roll 
onward  riotously,  flourishing  their  muskets  above  their 
heads,  shuffling  their  heavy  heels  into  an  instinctive 
dance,  and  roaring  out  some  holy  verse  from  the  New 
England  Psalmody,  or  those  harsh  old  warlike  stanzas 
which  tell  the  story  of  "Lovell's  Fight."  Thus  they 
pour  along,  till  the  battered  town  and  the  rabble  of  its 
conquerors,  and  the  shouts,  the  drums,  the  singing,  and 
the  laughter,  grow  dim,  and  die  away  from  Fancy's 
eye  and  ear. 

The  arms  of  Great  Britain  were  not  crowned  by  a 
more  brilliant  achievement  during  that  unprosperous 
war  ;  and,  in  adjusting  the  terms  of  a  subsequent  peace, 
Louisburg  was  an  equivalent  for  many  losses  nearer 
home.  The  English,  with  very  pardonable  vanity,  at 
tributed  the  conquest  chiefly  to  the  valor  of  the  naval 
force.  On  the  Continent  of  Europe,  our  fathers  met 
with  greater  justice,  and  Voltaire  has  ranked  this  en 
terprise  of  the  husbandmen  of  New  England  among 
the  most  remarkable  events  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XY. 
The  ostensible  leaders  did  not  fail  of  reward.  Shirley, 
originally  a  lawyer,  was  commissioned  in  the  regular 
army,  and  rose  to  the  supreme  military  command  in 
America.  Warren,  also,  received  honors  and  profes 
sional  rank,  and  arrogated  to  himself,  without  scruple, 
the  whole  crop  of  laurels  gathered  at  Louisburg.  Pep- 
perell  was  placed  at  the  head  of  a  royal  regiment,  and, 
first  of  his  countrymen,  was  distinguished  by  the  title 
of  baronet.  Vauglian  alone,  who  had  been  soul  of  the 


SIR    WILLIAM  PEPPERELL.  245 

deed  from  its  adventurous  conception  till  the  trium 
phant  close,  and  in  every  danger  and  every  hardship 
had  exhibited  a  rare  union  of  ardor  and  perseverance, 
—  Vaughan  was  entirely  neglected,  and  died  in  Lon 
don,  whither  he  had  gone  to  make  known  his  claims. 
After  the  great  era  of  his  life,  Sir  William  Pepperell 
did  not  distinguish  himself  either  as  a  warrior  or  a 
statesman.  He  spent  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  all 
the  pomp  of  a  colonial  grandee,  and  laid  down  his 
aristocratic  head  among  the  humbler  ashes  of  his  fa 
thers,  just  before  the  commencement  of  the  earliest 
troubles  between  England  and  America. 


THOMAS   GREEN  FESSENDEN. 

THOMAS  GREEN  FESSENDEN  was  the  eldest  of  nine 
children  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Fessenden.  He  was  born 
on  the  22d  of  April,  1771,  at  Walpole,  in  New  Hamp 
shire,  where  his  father,  a  man  of  learning  and  talent, 
was  long  settled  in  the  ministry.  On  the  maternal 
side,  likewise,  he  was  of  clerical  extraction ;  his  moth 
er,  whose  piety  and  amiable  qualities  are  remembered 
by  her  descendants,  being  the  daughter  of  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Kendal,  of  New  Salem.  The  early  education 
of  Thomas  Green  was  chiefly  at  the  common  school  of 
his  native  place,  under  the  tuition  of  students  from  the 
college  at  Hanover ;  and  such  was  his  progress,  that 
he  became  himself  the  instructor  of  a  school  in  New 
Salem  at  the  age  of  sixteen.  He  spent  most  of  his 
youthful  days,  however,  in  bodily  labor  upon  the  farm, 
thus  contributing  to  the  support  of  a  numerous  family ; 
and  the  practical  knowledge  of  agriculture  which  he 
then  obtained  was  long  afterwards  applied  to  the  ser 
vice  of  the  public.  Opportunities  for  cultivating  his 
mind  were  afforded  him,  not  only  in  his  father's  library, 
but  by  the  more  miscellaneous  contents  of  a  large 
bookstore.  He  had  passed  the  age  of  twenty-one  when 
his  inclination  for  mental  pursuits  determined  him  to 
become  a  student  at  Dartmouth  College.  His  father 
being  able  to  give  but  little  assistance,  his  chief  re 
sources  at  college  consisted  in  his  wages  as  teacher  of 
a  village  school  during  the  vacations.  At  times,  also, 
he  gave  instruction  to  an  evening  class  in  psalmody. 


THOMAS   GREEN  FESSENDEN.  247 

From  his  childhood  upward,  Mr.  Fessenden  had 
shown  symptoms  of  that  humorous  turn  which  after 
wards  so  strongly  marked  his  writings ;  but  his  first 
effort  in  verse,  as  he  himself  told  me,  was  made  dur 
ing  his  residence  at  college.  The  themes,  or  exercises, 
of  his  fellow-students  in  English  composition,  whether 
prose  or  rhyme,  were  well  characterized  by  the  lack 
of  native  thought  and  feeling,  the  cold  pedantry,  the 
mimicry  of  classic  models,  common  to  all  such  produc 
tions.  Mr.  Fessenden  had  the  good  taste  to  disapprove 
of  these  vapid  and  spiritless  performances,  and  re 
solved  to  strike  out  a  new  course  for  himself.  On  one 
occasion,  when  his  classmates  had  gone  through  with 
their  customary  round  of  verbiage  and  threadbare  sen 
timent,  he  electrified  them  and  their  instructor,  Presi 
dent  Wheelock,  by  reading  "Jonathan's  Courtship." 
There  has  never,  to  this  day,  been  produced  by  any 
of  our  countrymen  a  more  original  and  truly  Yankee 
effusion.  He  had  caught  the  rare  art  of  sketching 
familiar  manners,  and  of  throwing  into  verse  the  very 
spirit  of  society  as  it  existed  around  him ;  and  he  had 
imbued  each  line  with  a  peculiar  yet  perfectly  natural 
and  homely  humor.  This  excellent  ballad  compels  me 
to  regret,  that,  instead  of  becoming  a  satirist  in  poli 
tics  and  science,  and  wasting  his  strength  on  tempo 
rary  and  evanescent  topics,  he  had  not  continued  to  be 
a  rural  poet.  •  A  volume  of  such  sketches  as  "  Jona 
than's  Courtship,"  describing  various  aspects  of  life 
among  the  yeomanry  of  New  England,  could  not  have 
failed  to  gain  a  permanent  place  in  American  litera 
ture.  The  effort  in  question  met  with  unexampled 
success :  it  ran  through  the  newspapers  of  the  day, 
reappeared  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  was 
warmly  applauded  by  the  English  critics,  nor  has  it 


248  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

yet  lost  its  popularity.  New  editions  may  be  found 
every  year  at  the  ballad-stalls ;  and  I  saw  last  sum 
mer,  on  the  veteran  author's  table,  a  broadside  copy 
of  his  maiden  poem,  which  he  had  himself  bought  in 
the  street. 

Mr.  Fessenden  passed  through  college  with  a  fair 
reputation  for  scholarship,  and  took  his  degree  in  1796. 
It  had  been  his  father's  wish  that  he  should  imitate 
the  example  of  some  of  his  ancestors  on  both  sides,  by 
devoting  himself  to  the  ministry.  He,  however,  pre 
ferred  the  law,  and  commenced  the  study  of  that  pro 
fession  at  Rutland,  in  Vermont,  with  Nathaniel  Chip- 
man,  then  the  most  eminent  practitioner  in  the  State. 
After  his  admission  to  the  bar,  Mr.  Chipman  received 
him  into  partnership.  But  Mr.  Fessenden  was  ill 
qualified  to  succeed  in  the  profession  of  law,  by  his 
simplicity  of  character,  and  his  utter  inability  to  ac 
quire  an  ordinary  share  of  shrewdness  and  worldly 
wisdom.  Moreover,  the  success  of  "  Jonathan's  Court 
ship,"  and  other  poetical  effusions,  had  turned  his 
thoughts  from  law  to  literature,  and  had  procured  him 
the  acquaintance  of  several  literary  luminaries  of  those 
days ;  none  of  whose  names,  probably,  have  survived 
to  our  own  generation,  save  that  of  Joseph  Dennie, 
once  esteemed  the  finest  writer  in  America.  His  in 
tercourse  with  these  people  tempted  Mr.  Fessenden  to 
spend  much  time  in  writing  for  newspapers  and  peri 
odicals.  A  taste  for  scientific  pursuits  still  further 
diverted  him  from  his  legal  studies,  and  soon  engaged 
him  in  an  affair  which  influenced  the  complexion  of 
all  his  after-life. 

A  Mr.  Langdon  had  brought  forward  a  newly  in 
vented  hydraulic  machine,  which  was  supposed  to  pos 
sess  the  power  of  raising  water  to  a  greater  height 


THOMAS   GREEN  FESSENDEN.  249 

than  had  hitherto  been  considered  possible.  A  com 
pany  of  mechanics  and  others  became  interested  in  this 
machine,  and  appointed  Mr.  Fessenden  their  agent 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  patent  in  London.  He 
was,  likewise,  a  member  of  the  company.  Mr.  Fes 
senden  was  urged  to  hasten  his  departure,  in  conse 
quence  of  a  report  that  certain  persons  had  acquired 
the  secret  of  the  invention,  and  were  determined  to  an 
ticipate  the  proprietors  in  securing  a  patent.  Scarcely 
time  was  allowed  for  testing  the  efficacy  of  the  machine 
by  a  few  hasty  experiments,  which,  however,  appeared 
satisfactory.  Taking  passage  immediately,  Mr.  Fes 
senden  arrived  in  London  on  the  4th  of  July,  1801, 
and  waited  on  Mr.  King,  then  our  minister,  by  whom 
he  was  introduced  to  Mr.  Nicholson,  a  gentleman  of 
eminent  scientific  reputation.  After  thoroughly  ex 
amining  the  invention,  Mr.  Nicholson  gave  an  opinion 
unfavorable  to  its  merits ;  and  the  question  was  soon 
settled  by  a  letter  from  one  of  the  Vermont  proprie 
tors  to  Mr.  Fessenden,  informing  him  that  the  appar 
ent  advantages  of  the  machine  had  been  found  alto 
gether  deceptive.  In  short,  Mr.  Fessenden  had  been 
lured  from  his  profession  and  country  by  as  empty  a 
bubble  as  that  of  the  perpetual  motion.  Yet  it  is 
creditable  both  to  his  ability  and  energy,  that,  laying 
hold  of  what  was  really  valuable  in  Langdon's  con 
trivance,  he  constructed  the  model  of  a  machine  for 
raising  water  from  coal-mines,  and  other  great  depths, 
by  means  of  what  he  termed  the  "  renovated  pressure 
of  the  atmosphere."  On  communicating  this  inven 
tion  to  Mr.  Nicholson  and  other  eminent  mechani 
cians,  they  acknowledged  its  originality  and  ingenuity, 
and  thought  that,  in  some  situations,  it  might  be  use 
ful.  But  the  expenses  of  a  patent  in  England,  the 


250  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

difficulty  of  obtaining  patronage  for  such  a  project, 
and  the  uncertainty  of  the  result,  were  obstacles  too 
weighty  to  be  overcome.  Mr.  Fessenden  threw  aside 
the  scheme,  and,  after  a  two  months'  residence  in  Lon 
don,  was  preparing  to  return  home,  when  a  new  and 
characteristic  adventure  arrested  him. 

He  received  a  visit,  at  his  lodging  in  the  Strand, 
from  a  person  whom  he  had  never  before  seen,  but 
who  introduced  himself  to  his  good-will  as  being  like 
wise  an  American.  His  business  was  of  a  nature  well 
calculated  to  excite  Mr.  Fessenden's  interest.  He  pro 
duced  the  model  of  an  ingenious  contrivance  for  grind 
ing  corn.  A  patent  had  already  been  obtained  ;  and  a 
company,  with  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  at  its  head, 
was  associated  for  the  construction  of  mills  upon  this 
new  principle.  The  inventor,  according  to  his  own 
story,  had  disposed  of  one  fourth  part  of  his  patent 
for  five  hundred  pounds,  and  was  willing  to  accom 
modate  his  countryman  with  another  fourth.  After 
some  inquiry  into  the  stranger's  character  and  the  ac 
curacy  of  his  statements,  Mr.  Fessenden  became  a  pur 
chaser  of  the  share  that  was  offered  him ;  on  what 
terms  is  not  stated,  but  probably  such  as  to  involve  his 
whole  property  in  the  adventure.  The  result  was  dis 
astrous.  The  lord  mayor  soon  withdrew  his  counte 
nance  from  the  project.  It  ultimately  appeared  that 
Mr.  Fessenden  was  the  only  real  purchaser  of  any  part 
of  the  patent ;  and,  as  the  original  patentee  shortly  af 
terwards  quitted  the  concern,  the  former  was  left  to 
manage  the  business  as  he  best  could.  With  a  perse 
verance  not  less  characteristic  than  his  credulity,  he 
associated  himself  with  four  partners,  and  undertook 
to  superintend  the  construction  of  one  of  these  patent- 
mills  upon  the  Thames.  But  his  associates,  who  were 


THOMAS   GREEN  FESSENDEN.  251 

men  of  no  respectability,  thwarted  his  plans ;  and  af 
ter  much  toil  of  body,  as  well  as  distress  of  mind,  he 
found  himself  utterly  ruined,  friendless  and  penniless, 
in  the  midst  of  London.  No  other  event  could  have 
been  anticipated,  when  a  man  so  devoid  of  guile  was 
thrown  among  a  set  of  crafty  adventurers. 

Being  now  in  the  situation  in  which  many  a  literary 
man  before  him  had  been,  he  remembered  the  success 
of  his  fugitive  poems,  and  betook  himself  to  the  pen 
as  his  most  natural  resource.  A  subject  was  offered 
him,  in  which  no  other  poet  would  have  found  a  theme 
for  the  Muse.  It  seemed  to  be  his  fatality  to  form 
connections  with  schemers  of  all  sorts ;  and  he  had  be 
come  acquainted  with  Benjamin  Douglas  Perkins,  the 
patentee  of  the  famous  metallic  tractors.  These  im 
plements  were  then  in  great  vogue  for  the  cure  of  in 
flammatory  diseases,  by  removing  the  superfluous  elec 
tricity.  Perkinism,  as  the  doctrine  of  metallic  tractors 
was  styled,  had  some  converts  among  scientific  men, 
and  many  among  the  people,  but  was  violently  opposed 
by  the  regular  corps  of  physicians  and  surgeons.  Mr. 
Fessenden,  as  might  be  expected,  was  a  believer  in  the 
efficacy  of  the  tractors,  and,  at  the  request  of  Perkins, 
consented  to  make  them  the  subject  of  a  poem  in  Hu- 
dibrastic  verse,  the  satire  of  which  was  to  be  levelled 
against  their  opponents.  "  Terrible  Tractoration  "  was 
the  result.  It  professes  to  be  a  poetical  petition  from 
Dr.  Christopher  Caustic,  a  medical  gentleman  who  has 
been  ruined  by  the  success  of  the  metallic  tractors, 
and  who  applies  to  the  Eoyal  College  of  Physicians 
for  relief  and  redress.  The  wits  of  the  poor  doctor 
have  been  somewhat  shattered  by  his  misfortunes; 
and,  with  crazy  ingenuity,  he  contrives  to  heap  ridi 
cule  on  his  medical  brethren,  under  pretence  of  rail- 


252  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

ing  against  Perkinism.  The  poem  is  in  four  cantos, 
the  first  of  which  is  the  best,  and  the  most  character 
istic  of  the  author.  It  is  occupied  with  Dr.  Caustic's 
description  of  his  mechanical  and  scientific  contriv 
ances,  embracing  all  sorts  of  possible  and  impossible 
projects ;  every  one  of  which,  however,  has  a  ridicu 
lous  plausibility.  The  inexhaustible  variety  in  which 
they  flow  forth  proves  the  author's  invention  unri 
valled  in  its  way.  It  shows  what  had  been  the  nature 
of  Mr.  Fessenden's  mental  toil  during  his  residence  in 
London,  continually  brooding  over  the  miracles  of 
mechanism  and  science,  his  enthusiasm  for  which  had 
cost  him  so  dear.  Long  afterwards,  speaking  of  the 
first  conception  of  this  poem,  the  author  told  me  that 
he  had  shaped  it  out  during  a  solitary  day's  ramble 
in  the  outskirts  of  London ;  and  the  character  of  Dr. 
Caustic  so  strongly  impressed  itself  on  his  mind,  that, 
as  he  walked  homeward  through  the  crowded  streets, 
he  burst  into  frequent  fits  of  laughter.  The  truth  is, 
that,  in  the  sketch  of  this  wild  projector,  Mr.  Fessen- 
den  had  caricatured  some  of  his  own  features ;  and, 
when  he  laughed  so  heartily,  it  was  at  the  perception 
of  the  resemblance. 

"  Terrible  Tractoratioii "  is  a  work  of  strange  and 

O 

grotesque  ideas  aptly  expressed  :  its  rhymes  are  of  a 
most  singular  character,  yet  fitting  each  to  each  as  ac 
curately  as  echoes.  As  in  all  Mr.  Fessenden's  produc 
tions,  there  is  great  exactness  in  the  language  ;  the 
author's  thoughts  being  thrown  off  as  distinctly  as  im 
pressions  from  a  type.  In  regard  to  the  pleasure  to 
be  derived  from  reading  this  poem,  there  is  room  for 
diversity  of  taste  ;  but  that  it  is  an  original  and  re 
markable  work,  no  person  competent  to  pass  judgment 
on  a  literary  question  will  deny.  It  was  first  pub- 


THOMAS   GREEN  FESSENDEN.  253 

lished  early  in  the  year  1803,  in  an  octavo  pamphlet 
of  above  fifty  pages.  Being  highly  applauded  by  the 
principal  reviews,  and  eagerly  purchased  by  the  public, 
a  new  edition  appeared  at  the  end  of  two  months,  in  a 
volume  of  nearly  two  hundred  pages,  illustrated  with 
engravings.  It  received  the  praise  of  Gifford,  the  se 
verest  of  English  critics.  Its  continued  success  en 
couraged  the  author  to  publish  a  volume  of  "  Original 
Poems,"  consisting  chiefly  of  his  fugitive  pieces  from 
the  American  newspapers.  This,  also,  was  favorably 
received.  He  was  now,  what  so  few  of  his  countrymen 
have  ever  been,  a  popular  author  in  London  ;  and,  in 
the  midst  of  his  triumphs,  he  bethought  himself  of  his 
native  land. 

Mr.  Fessenden  returned  to  America  in  1804.  He 
came  back  poorer  than  he  went,  but  with  an  honora 
ble  reputation,  and  with  unstained  integrity,  although 
his  evil  fortune  had  connected  him  with  men  far  un 
like  himself.  His  fame  had  preceded  him  across  the 
Atlantic.  Shortly  before  his  arrival,  an  edition  of 
"  Terrible  Tractoration  "  had  been  published  at  Phila 
delphia,  with  a  prefatory  memoir  of  the  author,  the 
tone  of  which  proves  that  the  American  people  felt 
themselves  honored  in  the  literary  success  of  their 
countryman.  Another  edition  appeared  in  New  York, 
in  1806,  considerably  enlarged,  with  a  new  satire  on 
the  topics  of  the  day.  It  is  symptomatic  of  the  course 
which  the  author  had  now  adopted,  that  much  of  this 
new  satire  was  directed  against  Democratic  principles 
and  the  prominent  upholders  of  them.  This  was  soon 
followed  by  "  Democracy  Unveiled,"  a  more  elaborate 
attack  on  the  same  political  party. 

In  "Democracy  Unveiled,"  our  friend  Dr.  Caustic 
appears  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  pours 


254  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

out  six  cantos  of  vituperative  verse,  with  copious  notes 
of  the  same  tenor,  on  the  heads  of  President  Jefferson 
and  his  supporters.  Much  of  the  satire  is  unpardon- 
ably  coarse.  The  literary  merits  of  the  work  are  in 
ferior  to  those  of  "  Terrible  Tractoration  ;  "  but  it  is 
110  less  original  and  peculiar.  Even  where  the  matter 
is  a  mere  versification  of  newspaper  slander,  Dr  Caus 
tic's  manner  gives  it  an  individuality  not  to  be  mis 
taken.  The  book  passed  through  three  editions  in  the 
course  of  a  few  months.  Its  most  pungent  portions 
were  copied  into  all  the  opposition  prints ;  its  strange, 
jog-trot  stanzas  were  familiar  to  every  ear ;  and  Mr. 
Fessenden  may  fairly  be  allowed  the  credit  of  having 
given  expression  to  the  feelings  of  the  great  Federal 
party. 

On  the  30th  of  August,  1806,  Mr.  Fessenden  com 
menced  the  publication,  at  New  York,  of  "  The  Weekly 
Inspector,"  a  paper  at  first  of  eight,  and  afterwards  of 
sixteen,  octavo  pages.  It  appeared  every  Saturday. 
The  character  of  this  journal  was  mainly  political ;  but 
there  are  also  a  few  flowers  and  sweet-scented  twigs  of 
literature  intermixed  among  the  nettles  and  burrs, 
which  alone  flourish  in  the  arena  of  party  strife.  Its 
columns  are  profusely  enriched  with  scraps  of  satirical 
verse,  in  which  Dr.  Caustic,  in  his  capacity  of  ballad- 
maker  to  the  Federal  faction,  spared  not  to  celebrate 
every  man  or  measure  of  government  that  was  anywise 
susceptible  of  ridicule.  Many  of  his  prose  articles  are 
carefully  and  ably  written,  attacking  not  men  so  much 
as  principles  and  measures ;  and  his  deeply  felt  anx 
iety  for  the  welfare  of  his  country  sometimes  gives 
an  impressive  dignity  to  his  thoughts  and  style.  The 
dread  of  French  domination  seems  to  have  haunted 
him  like  a  nightmare.  But,  in  spite  of  the  editor's 


THOMAS    GREEN  FESSENDEN.  255 

satirical  reputation,  "  The  Weekly  Inspector  "  was  too 
conscientious  a  paper,  too  sparingly  spiced  with  the 
red  pepper  of  personal  abuse,  to  succeed  in  those  out 
rageous  times.  The  publication  continued  but  for  a 
single  year,  at  the  end  of  which  we  find  Mr.  Fessen- 
den's  valedictory  to  his  readers.  Its  tone  is  despon 
dent  both  as  to  the  prospects  of  the  country  and  his 
own  private  fortunes.  The  next  token  of  his  labors 
that  has  come  under  my  notice  is  a  small  volume  of 
verse,  published  at  Philadelphia  in  1809,  and  alliter- 
atively  entitled  "  Pills,  Poetical,  Political,  and  Philo 
sophical;  prescribed  for  the  Purpose  of  purging  the 
Public  of  Piddling  Philosophers,  Penny  Poetasters,  of 
Paltry  Politicians,  and  Petty  Partisans.  By  Peter 
Pepper -Box,  Poet  and  Physician."  This  satire  had 
been  written  during  the  embargo,  but,  not  making  its 
appearance  till  after  the  repeal  of  that  measure,  met 
with  less  success  than  "  Democracy  Unveiled." 

Everybody  who  has  known  Mr.  Fessenden  must 
have  wondered  how  the  kindest  hearted  man  in  all  the 
world  could  have  likewise  been  the  most  noted  satirist 
of  his  day.  For  my  part,  I  have  tried  in  vain  to  form 
a  conception  of  my  venerable  and  peaceful  friend  as  a 
champion  in  the  stormy  strife  of  party,  flinging  mud 
full  in  the  faces  of  his  foes,  and  shouting  forth  the 
bitter  laughter  that  rang  from  border  to  border  of  the 
land ;  and  I  can  hardly  believe,  though  well  assured 
of  it,  that  his  antagonists  should  ever  have  meditated 
personal  violence  against  the  gentlest  of  human  crea 
tures.  I  am  sure,  at  least,  that  Nature  never  meant 
him  for  a  satirist.  On  careful  examination  of  his 
works,  I  do  not  find  in  any  of  them  the  ferocity  of 
the  true  blood-hound  of  literature,  —  such  as  Swift,  or 
Churchill,  or  Cobbett,  —  which  fastens  upon  the  throat 


256  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

of  its  victim,  and  would  fain  drink  his  life-blood.  In 
my  opinion,  Mr.  Fessenden  never  felt  the  slightest 
personal  ill-will  against  the  objects  of  his  satire,  ex 
cept,  indeed,  they  had  endeavored  to  detract  from  his 
literary  reputation,  —  an  offence  which  he  resented 
with  a  poet's  sensibility,  and  seldom  failed  to  punish. 
With  such  exceptions,  his  works  are  not  properly  sa 
tirical,  but  the  offspring  of  a  mind  inexhaustibly  fer 
tile  in  ludicrous  ideas,  which  it  appended  to  any  topic 
in  hand.  At  times,  doubtless,  the  all-pervading  frenzy 
of  the  times  inspired  him  with  a  bitterness  not  his 
own.  But,  in  the  least  defensible  of  his  writings,  he 
was  influenced  by  an  honest  zeal  for  the  public  good. 
There  was  nothing  mercenary  in  his  connection  with 
politics.  To  an  antagonist,  who  had  taunted  him  with 
being  poor,  he  calmly  replied,  that  he  "  need  not  have 
been  accused  of  the  crime  of  poverty,  could  he  have 
prostituted  his  principles  to  party  purposes,  and  be 
come  the  hireling  assassin  of  the  dominant  faction." 
Nor  can  there  be  a  doubt  that  the  administration  would 
gladly  have  purchased  the  pen  of  so  popular  a  writer. 
I  have  gained  hardly  any  information  of  Mr.  Fes- 
senden's  life  between  the  years  1807  and  1812  ;  at 
which  latter  period,  and  probably  some  time  previous, 
he  was  settled  at  the  village  of  Bellows  Falls,  on  Con 
necticut  River,  in  the  practice  of  the  law.  In  May 
of  that  year,  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  become  ac 
quainted  with  Miss  Lydia  Tuttle,  daughter  of  Mr. 
John  Tuttle,  an  independent  and  intelligent  farmer  at 
Littleton,  Mass.  She  was  then  on  a  visit  in  Vermont. 
After  her  return  home,  a  correspondence  ensued  be 
tween  this  lady  and  Mr.  Fessenden,  and  was  continued 
till  their  marriage,  in  September,  1813.  She  was  con 
siderably  younger  than  himself,  but  endowed  with  the 


THOMAS   GREEN  FESSENDEN.  257 

qualities  most  desirable  in  the  wife  of  such  a  man ; 
and  it  would  not  be  easy  to  overestimate  how  much  his 
prosperity  and  happiness  were  increased  by  this  union. 
Mrs.  Fessenden  could  appreciate  what  was  excellent  in 
her  husband,  and  supply  what  was  deficient.  In  her 
affectionate  good  sense  he  found  a  substitute  for  the 
worldly  sagacity  which  he  did  not  possess,  and  could 
not  learn.  To  her  he  intrusted  the  pecuniary  cares, 
always  so  burdensome  to  a  literary  man.  Her  influ 
ence  restrained  him  from  such  imprudent  enterprises 
as  had  caused  the  misfortunes  of  his  earlier  years. 
She  smoothed  his  path  of  life,  and  made  it  pleasant  to 
him,  and  lengthened  it ;  for,  as  he  once  told  me  (I  be 
lieve  it  was  while  advising  me  to  take,  betimes,  a  sim 
ilar  treasure  to  myself),  he  would  have  been  in  his 
grave  long  ago,  but  for  her  care. 

Mr.  Fessenden  continued  to  practise  law  at  Bellows 
Falls  till  1815,  when  he  removed  to  Brattleborough, 
and  assumed  the  editorship  of  "  The  Brattleborough 
Reporter,"  a  political  newspaper.  The  following  year, 
in  compliance  with  a  pressing  invitation  from  the  in 
habitants,  he  returned  to  Bellows  Falls,  and  edited, 
with  much  success,  a  literary  and  political  paper, 
called  "  The  Intelligencer."  He  held  this  employment 
till  the  year  1822,  at  the  same  time  practising  law,  and 
composing  a  volume  of  poetry,  "  The  Ladies'  Monitor," 
besides  compiling  several  works  in  law,  the  arts,  and 
agriculture.  During  this  part  of  his  life,  he  usually 
spent  sixteen  hours  of  the  twenty-four  in  study.  In 
1822  he  clime  to  Boston  as  editor  of  "  The  New  Eng 
land  Farmer,"  a  weekly  journal,  the  first  established, 
and  devoted  principally  to  the  diffusion  of  agricul 
tural  knowledge. 

His  management  of  the  "  Farmer  "  met  unreserved 

TOL.  XII.  IT 


258  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES. 

approbation.  Having  been  bred  upon  a  farm,  and 
passed  much  of  his  later  life  in  the  country,  and  being 
thoroughly  conversant  with  the  writers  on  rural  econ 
omy,  he  was  admirably  qualified  to  conduct  such  a 
journal.  It  was  extensively  circulated  throughout 
New  England,  and  may  be  said  to  have  fertilized  the 
soil  like  rain  from  heaven.  Numerous  papers  on  the 
same  plan  sprung  up  in  various  parts  of  the  country  ; 
but  none  attained  the  standard  of  their  prototype. 
Besides  his  editorial  labors,  Mr.  Fessenden  published, 
from  time  to  time,  various  compilations  on  agricul 
tural  subjects,  or  adaptations  of  English  treatises  to 
the  use  of  the  American  husbandman.  Verse  he  no 
longer  wrote,  except,  now  and  then,  an  ode  or  song  for 
some  agricultural  festivity.  His  poems,  being  con 
nected  with  topics  of  temporary  interest,  ceased  to  be 
read,  now  that  the  metallic  tractors  were  thrown 
aside,  and  that  the  blending  and  merging  of  parties 
had  created  an  entire  change  of  political  aspects,  since 
the  days  of  "  Democracy  Unveiled."  The  poetic  lau 
rel  withered  among  his  gray  hairs,  and  dropped  away, 
leaf  by  leaf.  His  name,  once  the  most  familiar,  was 
forgotten  in  the  list  of  American  bards.  I  know  not 
that  this  oblivion  was  to  be  regretted.  Mr.  Fessen 
den,  if  my  observation  of  his  temperament  be  correct, 
was  peculiarly  sensitive  and  nervous  in  regard  to  the 
trials  of  authorship  :  a  little  censure  did  him  more 
harm  than  much  praise  could  do  him  good ;  and  me- 
thinks  the  repose  of  total  neglect  was  better  for  him 
than  a  feverish  notoriety.  Were  it  worth  while  to 
imagine  any  other  course  for  the  latter  part  of  his 
life,  which  he  made  so  useful  and  so  honorable,  it 
might  be  wished  that  he  could  have  devoted  himself 
entirely  to  scientific  research.  He  had  a  strong  taste 


THOMAS   GREEN  FESSENDEN.  259 

for  studies  of  that  kind,  and  sometimes  used  to  lament 
that  his  daily  drudgery  afforded  him  no  leisure  to  com 
pose  a  work  on  caloric,  which  subject  he  had  thor 
oughly  investigated. 

In  January,  1836,  I  became,  and  continued  for  a 
few  months,  an  inmate  of  Mr.  Fessenden's  family.  It 
was  my  first  acquaintance  with  him.  His  image  is  be 
fore  my  mind's  eye  at  this  moment ;  slowly  approach 
ing  me  with  a  lamp  in  his  hand,  his  hair  gray,  his  face 
solemn  and  pale,  his  tall  and  portly  figure  bent  with 
heavier  infirmity  than  befitted  his  years.  His  dress, 
though  he  had  improved  in  this  particular  since  mid 
dle  Hf e,  was  marked  by  a  truly  scholastic  negligence. 
He  greeted  me  kindly,  and  with  plain,  old-fashioned 
courtesy ;  though  I  fancied  that  he  somewhat  regretted 
the  interruption  of  his  evening  studies.  After  a  few 
moments'  talk,  he  invited  me  to  accompany  him  to  his 
study,  and  give  my  opinion  on  some  passages  of  sa 
tirical  verse,  which  were  to  be  inserted  in  a  new  edi 
tion  of  "  Terrible  Tractoration."  Years  before,  I  had 
lighted  on  an  illustrated  copy  of  this  poem,  bestrewn 
with  venerable  dust,  in  a  corner  of  a  college  library  ; 
and  it  seemed  strange  and  whimsical  that  I  should  find 
it  still  in  progress  of  composition,  and  be  consulted 
about  it  by  Dr.  Caustic  himself.  While  Mr.  Fessenr 
den  read,  I  had  leisure  to  glance  around  at  his  study, 
which  was  very  characteristic  of  the  man  and  his  occu 
pations.  The  table,  and  great  part  of  the  floor,  were 
covered  with  books  and  pamphlets  on  agricultural  sub 
jects,  newspapers  from  all  quarters,  manuscript  arti 
cles  for  "  The  New  England  Farmer,"  and  manuscript 
stanzas  for  "  Terrible  Tractoration."  There  was  such 
a  litter  as  always  gathers  around  a  literary  man.  It 
bespoke,  at  once,  Mr.  Fessen den's  amiable  temper  and 


260  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES. 

his  abstracted  habits,  that  several  members  of  the  fam 
ily,  old  and  young,  were  sitting  in  the  room,  and  en 
gaged  in  conversation,  apparently  without  giving  him 
the  least  disturbance.  A  specimen  of  Dr.  Caustic's 
inventive  genius  was  seen  in  the  "  Patent  Steam  and 
Hot-Water  Stove,"  which  heated  the  apartment,  and 
kept  up  a  pleasant  singing  sound,  like  that  of  a  tea 
kettle,  thereby  making  the  fireside  more  cheerful.  It 
appears  to  me,  that,  having  no  children  of  flesh  and 
blood,  Mr.  Fessenden  had  contracted  a  fatherly  fond 
ness  for  this  stove,  as  being  his  mental  progeny ;  and 
it  must  be  owned  that  the  stove  well  deserved  his  af 
fection,  and  repaid  it  with  much  warmth. 

The  new  edition  of  "  Tractor ation  "  came  out  not 
long  afterwards.  It  was  noticed  with  great  kindness 
by  the  press,  but  was  not  warmly  received  by  the  pub 
lic.  Mr.  Fessenden  imputed  the  failure,  in  part,  to  the 
illiberality  of  the  "  trade,"  and  avenged  himself  by  a 
little  poem,  in  his  best  style,  entitled  "  Wooden  Book 
sellers  "  ;  so  that  the  last  blow  of  his  satirical  scourge 
was  given  in  the  good  old  cause  of  authors  against 
publishers. 

Notwithstanding  a  wide  difference  of  age,  and  many 
more  points  of  dissimilarity  than  of  resemblance,  Mr. 
Fessenden  and  myself  soon  became  friends.  His  par 
tiality  seemed  not  to  be  the  result  of  any  nice  discrimi 
nation  of  my  good  and  evil  qualities  (for  he  had  no 
acuteness  in  that  way),  but  to  be  given  instinctively, 
like  the  affection  of  a  child.  On  my  part,  I  loved  the 
old  man  because  his  heart  was  as  transparent  as  a 
fountain ;  and  I  could  see  nothing  in  it  but  integrity 
and  purity,  and  simple  faith  in  his  fellow-men,  and 
good-will  towards  all  the  world.  His  character  was 
so  open,  that  I  did  not  need  to  correct  my  original 


THOMAS   GREEN  FESSENDEN.  261 

conception  of  it.  He  never  seemed  to  me  like  a  new 
acquaintance,  but  as  one  with  whom  I  had  been  famil 
iar  from  my  infancy.  Yet  he  was  a  rare  man,  such 
as  few  meet  with  in  the  course  of  a  lifetime. 

It  is  remarkable,  that,  with  such  kindly  affections, 
Mr.  Fessenden  was  so  deeply  absorbed  in  thought  and 
study  as  scarcely  to  allow  himself  time  for  domestic 
and  social  enjoyment.  During  the  winter  when  I  first 
knew  him,  his  mental  drudgery  was  almost  continual. 
Besides  "  The  New  England  Farmer,"  he  had  the  edi 
torial  charge  of  two  other  journals,  —  "  The  Horticul 
tural  Kegister,"  and  "  The  Silk  Manual  " ;  in  addition 
to  which  employment,  he  was  a  member  of  the  State 
Legislature,  and  took  some  share  in  the  debates.  The 
new  matter  of  "  Terrible  Tractoration  "  likewise  cost 
him  intense  thought.  Sometimes  I  used  to  meet  him 
in  the  street,  making  his  way  onward  apparently  by  a 
sort  of  instinct ;  while  his  eyes  took  note  of  nothing, 
and  would,  perhaps,  pass  over  my  face  without  sign  of 
recognition.  He  confessed  to  me  that  he  was  apt  to 
go  astray  when  intent  on  rhyme.  With  so  much  to 
abstract  him  from  outward  life,  he  could  hardly  be 
said  to  live  in  the  world  that  was  bustling  around  him. 
Almost  the  only  relaxation  that  he  allowed  himself 
was  an  occasional  performance  on  a  bass-viol,  which 
stood  in  the  corner  of  his  study,  and  from  which  he 
loved  to  elicit  some  old-fashioned  tune  of  soothing 
potency.  At  meal-times,  however,  dragged  down  and 
harassed  as  his  spirits  were,  he  brightened  up,  and 
generally  gladdened  the  whole  table  with  a  flash  of 
Dr.  Caustic's  humor. 

Had  I  anticipated  being  Mr.  Fessenden' s  biographer, 
I  might  have  drawn  from  him  many  details  that  would 
have  been  well  worth  remembering.  But  he  had  not 


262  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

the  tendency  of  most  men  in  advanced  life,  to  be  copi 
ous  in  personal  reminiscences  ;  nor  did  he  often  speak 
of  the  noted  writers  and  politicians  with  whom  the 
chances  of  earlier  years  hau  associated  him.  Indeed, 
lacking  a  turn  for  observation  of  character,  his  former 
companions  had  passed  before  him  like  images  in  a 
mirror,  giving  him  little  knowledge  of  their  inner  na 
ture.  Moreover,  till  his  latest  day,  he  was  more  in 
clined  to  form  prospects  for  the  future  than  to  dwell 
upon  the  past.  I  remember  —  the  last  time,  save  one, 
that  we  ever  met  —  I  found  him  on  the  bed,  suffer 
ing  with  a  dizziness  of  the  brain.  He  roused  him 
self,  however,  and  grew  very  cheerful ;  talking,  with  a 
youthful  glow  of  fancy,  about  emigrating  to  Illinois, 
where  he  possessed  a  farm,  and  picturing  a  new  life 
for  both  of  us  in  that  Western  region.  It  has  since 
come  to  my  memory,  that,  while  he  spoke,  there  was 
a  purple  flush  across  his  brow,  —  the  harbinger  of 
death. 

I  saw  him  but  once  more  alive.  On  the  thirteenth 
day  of  November  last,  while  on  my  way  to  Boston,  ex 
pecting  shortly  to  take  him  by  the  hand,  a  letter  met 
me  with  an  invitation  to  his  funeral.  He  had  been 
struck  with  apoplexy  on  Friday  evening,  three  days 
before,  and  had  lain  insensible  till  Saturday  night, 
when  he  expired.  The  burial  took  place  at  Mount 
Auburn  on  the  ensuing  Tuesday.  It  was  a  gloomy 
day ;  for  the  first  snow-storm  of  the  season  had  been 
drifting  through  the  air  since  morning ;  and  the  "  Gar 
den  of  Graves"  looked  the  dreariest  spot  on  earth. 
The  snow  came  down  so  fast,  that  it  covered  the  coffin 
in  its  passage  from  the  hearse  to  the  sepulchre.  The 
few  male  friends  who  had  followed  to  the  cemetery 
descended  into  the  tomb  ;  and  it  was  there  that  I  took 


THOMAS   GREEN  FESSENDEN.  263 

my  last  glance  at  the  features  of  a  man  who  will  hold 
a  place  in  my  remembrance  apart  from  other  men. 
He  was  like  no  other.  In  his  long  pathway  through 
life,  from  his  cradle  to  the  place  where  we  had  now 
laid  him,  he  had  come,  a  man  indeed  in  intellect  and 
achievement,  but,  in  guileless  simplicity,  a  child.  Dark 
would  have  been  the  hour,  if,  when  we  closed  the  door 
of  the  tomb  upon  his  perishing  mortality,  we  had  be 
lieved  that  our  friend  was  there. 

It  is  contemplated  to  erect  a  monument,  by  subscrip 
tion,  to  Mr.  Fessenden's  memory.  It  is  right  that  he 
should  be  thus  honored.  Mount  Auburn  will  long  re 
main  a  desert,  barren  of  consecrated  marbles,  if  worth 
like  his  be  yielded  to  oblivion.  Let  his  grave  be 
marked  out,  that  the  yeomen  of  New  England  may 
know  where  he  sleeps  ;  for  he  was  their  familiar 
friend,  and  has  visited  them  at  all  their  firesides.  He 
has  toiled  for  them  at  seed-time  and  harvest :  he  has 
scattered  the  good  grain  in  every  field  ;  and  they  have 
garnered  the  increase.  Mark  out  his  grave  as  that  of 
one  worthy  to  be  remembered  both  in  the  literary  and 
political  annals  of  our  country,  and  let  the  laurel  be 
carved  on  his  memorial  stone;  for  it  will  cover  the 
ashes  of  a  man  of  genius. 


JONATHAN   CILLEY. 

THE  subject  of  this  brief  memorial  had  barely  begun 
to  be  an  actor  in  the  great  scenes  where  his  part  could 
not  have  failed  to  be  a  prominent  one.  The  nation 
did  not  have  time  to  recognize  him.  His  death,  aside 
from  the  shock  with  which  the  manner  of  it  has  thrilled 
every  bosom,  is  looked  upon  merely  as  causing  a  va 
cancy  in  the  delegation  of  his  State,  which  a  new 
member  may  fill  as  creditably  as  the  departed.  It 
will,  perhaps,  be  deemed  praise  enough  to  say  of  Cilley, 
that  he  would  have  proved  himself  an  active  and  effi 
cient  partisan.  But  those  who  knew  him  longest  and 
most  intimately,  conscious  of  his  high  talents  and  rare 
qualities,  his  energy  of  mind  and  force  of  character, 
must  claim  much  more  than  such  a  meed  for  their  lost 
friend.  They  feel  that  not  merely  a  party  nor  a  sec 
tion,  but  our  collective  country,  has  lost  a  man  who 
had  the  heart  and  the  ability  to  serve  her  well.  It 
would  be  doing  injustice  to  the  hopes  which  lie  with 
ered  upon  his  untimely  grave,  if,  in  paying  a  farewell 
tribute  to  his  memory,  we  were  to  ask  a  narrower  sym 
pathy  than  that  of  the  people  at  large.  May  no  bit 
terness  of  party  prejudices  influence  him  who  writes, 
nor  those,  of  whatever  political  opinions,  who  may 
read ! 

Jonathan  Cilley  was  born  at  Nottingham,  N.  H.,  on 
the  2d  of  July,  1802.  His  grandfather,  Colonel  Jo 
seph  Cilley,  commanded  a  New  Hampshire  regiment 
during  the  Kevolutionary  War,  and  established  a  char- 


JONATHAN   CILLEY.  265 

acter  for  energy  and  intrepidity,  of  which  more  than 
one  of  his  descendants  have  proved  themselves  the  in 
heritors.  Greenleaf  Cilley,  son  of  the  preceding,  died 
in  1808,  leaving  a  family  of  four  sons  and  three  daugh 
ters.  The  aged  mother  of  this  family,  and  the  three 
daughters,  are  still  living.  Of  the  sons,  the  only  sur 
vivor  is  Joseph  Cilley,  who  was  an  officer  in  the  late 
war,  and  served  with  great  distinction  on  the  Cana 
dian  frontier.  Jonathan,  being  desirous  of  a  liberal 
education,  commenced  his  studies  at  Atkinson  Acad 
emy,  at  about  the  age  of  seventeen,  and  became  a 
member  of  the  freshman  class  of  Bowdoin  College, 
Brunswick,  Me.,  in  1821.  Inheriting  but  little  prop 
erty  from  his  father,  he  adopted  the  usual  expedient 
of  a  young  New-Englander  in  similar  circumstances, 
and  gained  a  small  income  by  teaching  a  country  school 
during  the  winter  months,  both  before  and  after  his 
entrance  at  college. 

Cilley's  character  and  standing  at  college  afforded 
high  promise  of  usefulness  and  distinction  in  after-life. 
Though  not  the  foremost  scholar  of  his  class,  he  stood 
in  the  front  rank,  and  probably  derived  all  the  real 
benefit  from  the  prescribed  course  of  study  that  it 
could  bestow  on  so  practical  a  mind.  His  true  educa 
tion  consisted  in  the  exercise  of  those  faculties  which 
fitted  him  to  be  a  popular  leader.  His  influence  among 
his  fellow-students  was  probably  greater  than  that  of 
any  other  individual ;  and  he  had  already  made  him 
self  powerful  in  that  limited  sphere,  by  a  free  and 
natural  eloquence,  a  flow  of  pertinent  ideas  in  lan 
guage  of  unstudied  appropriateness,  which  seemed  al 
ways  to  accomplish  precisely  the  result  on  which  he 
had  calculated.  This  gift  was  sometimes  displayed  in 
class  meetings,  when  measures  important  to  those  con- 


266  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

cerned  were  under  discussion  ;  sometimes  in  mock  trials 
at  law,  when  judge,  jury,  lawyers,  prisoner,  and  wit 
nesses  were  personated  by  the  students,  and  Cilley 
played  the  part  of  a  fervid  and  successful  advocate ; 
and,  besides  these  exhibitions  of  power,  he  regularly 
trained  himself  in  the  forensic  debates  of  a  literary 
society,  of  which  he  afterwards  became  president. 
Nothing  could  be  less  artificial  than  his  style  of  ora 
tory.  After  filling  his  mind  with  the  necessary  in 
formation,  he  trusted  everything  else  to  his  mental 
warmth  and  the  inspiration  of  the  moment,  and  poured 
himself  out  with  an  earnest  and  irresistible  simplicity. 
There  was  a  singular  contrast  between  the  flow  of 
thought  from  his  lips,  and  the  coldness  and  restraint 
with  which  he  wrote ;  and  though,  in  maturer  life,  he 
acquired  a  considerable  facility  in  exercising  the  pen, 
he  always  felt  the  tongue  to  be  his  peculiar  instrument. 
In  private  intercourse,  Cilley  possessed  a  remarka 
ble  fascination.  It  was  impossible  not  to  regard  him 
with  the  kindliest  feelings,  because  his  companions 
were  intuitively  certain  of  a  like  kindliness  on  his 
part.  He  had  a  power  of  sympathy  which  enabled 
him  to  understand  every  character,  and  hold  com 
munion  with  human  nature  in  all  its  varieties.  He 
never  shrank  from  the  intercourse  of  man  with  man ; 
and  it  was  to  his  freedom  in  this  particular  that  he 
owed  much  of  his  subsequent  popularity  among  a  peo 
ple  who  are  accustomed  to  take  a  personal  interest  in 
the  men  whom  they  elevate  to  office.  In  few  words, 
let  us  characterize  him  at  the  outset  of  life  as  a  young 
man  of  quick  and  powerful  intellect,  endowed  with 
sagacity  and  tact,  yet  frank  and  free  in  his  mode  of 
action,  ambitious  of  good  influence,  earnest,  active, 
and  persevering,  with  an  elasticity  and  cheerful  strength 


JONATHAN  CILLEY.  267 

o£  mind  which  made  difficulties  easy,  and  the  struggle 
with  them  a  pleasure.  Mingled  with  the  amiable  qual 
ities  that  were  like  sunshine  to  his  friends,  there  were 
harsher  and  sterner  traits,  which  fitted  him  to  make 
head  against  an  adverse  world ;  but  it  was  only  at  the 
moment  of  need  that  the  iron  framework  of  his  char 
acter  became  perceptible. 

Immediately  on  quitting  college,  Mr.  Cilley  took  up 
his  residence  in  Thomaston,  and  began  the  study  of 
law  in  the  office  of  John  Ruggles,  Esq.,  now  a  sena 
tor  in  Congress.  Mr.  Ruggles  being  then  a  promi 
nent  member  of  the  Democratic  party,  it  was  natural 
that  the  pupil  should  lend  his  aid  to  promote  the  po 
litical  views  of  his  instructor,  especially  as  he  would 
thus  uphold  the  principles  which  he  had  cherished 
from  boyhood.  From  year  to  year,  the  election  of  Mr. 
Kuggles  to  the  state  legislature  was  strongly  opposed. 
Cilley's  services  in  overcoming  this  opposition  were 
too  valuable  to  be  dispensed  with;  and  thus,  at  a 
period  when  most  young  men  still  stand  aloof  from 
the  world,  he  had  already  taken  his  post  as  a  leading 
politician.  He  afterwards  found  cause  to  regret  that 
so  much  time  had  been  abstracted  from  his  professional 
studies ;  nor  did  the  absorbing  and  exciting  nature  of 
his  political  career  afford  him  any  subsequent  oppor 
tunity  to  supply  the  defects  of  his  legal  education. 
He  was  admitted  an  attorney-at-law  in  1829,  and  in 
April  of  the  same  year  was  married  to  Miss  Deborah 
Prince,  daughter  of  Hon.  Hezekiah  Prince  of  Thom 
aston,  where  Mr.  Cilley  continued  to  reside,  and  en 
tered  upon  the  practice  of  his  profession. 

In  1831,  Mr.  Ruggles  having  been  appointed  a  judge 
of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  it  became  necessary  to 
send  a  new  representative  from  Thomaston  to  the  leg- 


268  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

islature  of  the  State.  Mr.  Cilley  was  brought  forward 
as  the  Democratic  candidate,  obtained  his  election, 
and  took  his  seat  in  January,  1832.  But  in  the  course 
of  this  year  the  friendly  relations  between  Judge  Rug- 
gles  and  Mr.  Cilley  were  broken  off.  The  former  gen 
tleman,  it  appears,  had  imbibed  the  idea  that  his  polit 
ical  aspirations  (which  were  then  directed  towards  a 
seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States)  did  not  receive 
all  the  aid  which  he  was  disposed  to  claim  from  the  in 
fluence  of  his  late  pupil.  When,  therefore,  Mr.  Cil 
ley  was  held  up  as  a  candidate  for  reelection  to  the  leg^ 
islature,  the  whole  strength  of  Judge  Ruggles  and  his 
adherents  was  exerted  against  him.  This  was  the  first 
act  and  declaration  of  a  political  hostility,  which  was 
too  warm  and  earnest  not  to  become,  in  some  degree, 
personal,  and  which  rendered  Mr.  Cilley's  subsequent 
career  a  continual  struggle  with  those  to  whom  he 
might  naturally  have  looked  for  friendship  and  support. 
It  sets  his  abilities  and  force  of  character  in  the  strong 
est  light,  to  view  him,  at  the  very  outset  of  public  life, 
without  the  aid  of  powerful  connections,  an  isolated 
young  man,  forced  into  a  position  of  hostility,  not 
merely  with  the  enemies  of  his  party,  but  likewise 
with  a  large  body  of  its  adherents,  even  accused  of 
treachery  to  its  principles,  yet  gaining  triumph  after 
triumph,  and  making  his  way  steadily  onward.  Surely 
his  was  a  mental  and  moral  energy  which  death  alone 
could  have  laid  prostrate. 

We  have  the  testimony  of  those  who  knew  Mr.  Cil 
ley  well,  that  his  own  feelings  were  never  so  imbit- 
tered  by  those  conflicts  as  to  prevent  him  from  inter 
changing  the  courtesies  of  society  with  his  most  violent 
opponents.  While  their  resentments  rendered  his  very 
presence  intolerable  to  them,  he  could  address  them 


JONATHAN  CILLEY.  269 

with  as  much  ease  and  composure  as  if  their  mutual 
relations  had  been  those  of  perfect  harmony.  There 
was  no  affectation  in  this  ;  it  was  the  good-natured  con 
sciousness  of  his  own  strength  that  enabled  him  to 
keep  his  temper  ;  it  was  the  same  chivalrous  sentiment 
which  impels  hostile  warriors  to  shake  hands  in  the 
intervals  of  battle.  Mr.  Cilley  was  slow  to  withdraw 
his  confidence  from  any  man  whom  he  deemed  a  friend  ; 
and  it  has  been  mentioned  as  almost  his  only  weak 
point,  that  he  was  too  apt  to  suffer  himself  to  be  be 
trayed  before  he  would  condescend  to  suspect.  His 
prejudices,  however,  when  once  adopted,  partook  of 
the  depth  and  strength  of  his  character,  and  could 
not  be  readily  overcome.  He  loved  to  subdue  his 
foes  ;  but  no  man  could  use  a  triumph  more  generously 
than  he. 

Let  us  resume  our  narrative.  In  spite  of  the  op 
position  of  Judge  Ruggles  and  his  friends,  combined 
with  that  of  the  Whigs,  Mr.  Cilley  was  re  elected  to 
the  legislature  of  1833,  and  was  equally  successful  in 
each  of  the  succeeding  years,  until  his  election  to  Con 
gress.  He  was  five  successive  years  the  representative 
of  Thomaston.  In  1834,  when  Mr.  Dunlap  was  nomi 
nated  as  the  Democratic  candidate  for  governor,  Mr. 
Cilley  gave  his  support  to  Governor  Smith,  in  the  be 
lief  that  the  substitution  of  a  new  candidate  had  been 
unfairly  effected.  He  considered  it  a  stratagem  in 
tended  to  promote  the  election  of  Judge  Ruggles  to  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  Early  in  the  legislative 
session  of  the  same  year,  the  Ruggles  party  obtained  a 
temporary  triumph  over  Mr.  Cilley,  effected  his  expul 
sion  from  the  Democratic  caucuses,  and  attempted  to 
stigmatize  him  as  a  traitor  to  his  political  friends.  But 
Mr.  Cilley 's  high  and  honorable  course  was  erelong  un- 


270  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES. 

derstood  and  appreciated  by  his  party  and  the  people, 
He  told  them  openly  and  boldly  that  they  might  under 
take  to  expel  him  from  their  caucuses,  but  they  could 
not  expel  him  from  the  Democratic  party ;  they  might 
stigmatize  him  with  any  appellation  they  might  choose, 
but  they  could  not  reach  the  height  on  which  he  stood, 
nor  shake  his  position  with  the  people.  But  a  few 
weeks  had  elapsed,  and  Mr.  Cilley  was  the  acknowl 
edged  head  and  leader  of  that  party  in  the  legislature. 
During  the  same  session,  Mr.  Speaker  Clifford  (one 
of  the  friends  of  Judge  Ruggles)  being  appointed  at 
torney-general,  the  Ruggles  party  were  desirous  of  se 
curing  the  election  of  another  of  their  adherents  to 
the  chair;  but,  as  it  was  obvious  that  Mr.  Cilley's 
popularity  would  gain  him  the  place,  the  incumbent 
was  induced  to  delay  his  resignation  till  the  end  of 
the  term.  At  the  session  of  1835,  Messrs.  Cilley, 
Davee,  and  McCrote  being  candidates  for  the  chair, 
Mr.  Cilley  withdrew  in  favor  of  Mr.  Davee.  That 
gentleman  was  accordingly  elected  ;  but,  being  soon 
afterwards  appointed  sheriff  of  Somerset  County,  Mr. 
Cilley  succeeded  him  as  speaker,  and  filled  the  same 
office  during  the  session  of  1836.  All  parties  awarded 
him  the  praise  of  being  the  best  presiding  officer  that 
the  house  ever  had. 

In  1836,  he  was  nominated  by  a  large  portion  of  the 
Democratic  electors  of  the  Lincoln  Congressional  Dis 
trict  as  their  candidate  for  Congress.  That  district 
has  recently  shown  itself  to  possess  a  decided  Whig 
majority ;  and  this  would  have  been  equally  the  case 
in  1836,  had  any  other  man  than  Mr.  Cilley  appeared 
on  the  Democratic  side.  He  had  likewise  to  contend, 
as  in  all  the  former  scenes  of  his  political  life,  with 
that  portion  of  his  own  party  which  adhered  to  Mr. 


JONATHAN  CILLEY.  271 

Ruggles.  There  was  still  another  formidable  obstacle 
in  the  high  character  of  Judge  Bailey,  who  then  rep 
resented  the  district,  and  was  a  candidate  for  reelec 
tion.  All  these  difficulties,  however,  served  only  to 
protract  the  contest,  but  could  not  snatch  the  victory 
from  Mr.  Cilley,  who  obtained  a  majority  of  yotes  at 
the  third  trial.  It  was  a  fatal  triumph. 

In  the  summer  of  1837,  a  few  months  after  his  elec 
tion  to  Congress,  I  met  Mr.  Cilley  for  the  first  time 
since  early  youth,  when  he  had  been  to  me  almost  as 
an  elder  brother.  The  two  or  three  days  which  I 
spent  in  his  neighborhood  enabled  us  to  renew  our 
former  intimacy.  In  his  person  there  was  very  little 
change,  and  that  little  was  for  the  better.  He  had  an 
impending  brow,  deep-set  eyes,  and  a  thin  and  thought 
ful  countenance,  which,  in  his  abstracted  moments, 
seemed  almost  stern  ;  but  in  the  intercourse  of  society 
it  was  brightened  with  a  kindly  smile,  that  will  live  in 
the  recollection  of  all  who  knew  him.  His  manners 
had  not  a  fastidious  polish,  but  were  characterized  by 
the  simplicity  of  one  who  had  dwelt  remote  from  cities, 
holding  free  companionship  with  the  yeomen  of  the 
land.  I  thought  him  as  true  a  representative  of  the 
people  as  ever  theory  could  portray.  His  earlier  and 
later  habits  of  life,  his  feelings,  partialities,  and  preju 
dices,  were  those  of  the  people :  the  strong  and  shrewd 
sense  which  constituted  so  marked  a  feature  of  his 
mind  was  but  a  higher  degree  of  the  popular  intellect. 
He  loved  the  people  and  respected  them,  and  was 
prouder  of  nothing  than  of  his  brotherhood  with  those 
who  had  intrusted  tfyeir  public  interests  to  his  care. 
His  continual  struggles  in  the  political  arena  had 
strengthened  his  bones  and  sinews  :  opposition  had 
kept  him  ardent ;  while  success  had  cherished  the  gen- 


272  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

erous  warmth  of  his  nature,  and  assisted  the  growth 
both  of  his  powers  and  sympathies.  Disappointment 
might  have  soured  and  contracted  him  ;  but  it  ap 
peared  to  me  that  his  triumphant  warfare  had  been  no 
less  beneficial  to  his  heart  than  to  his  mind.  I  was 
aware,  indeed,  that  his  harsher  traits  had  grown  apace 
with  his  milder  ones ;  that  he  possessed  iron  resolution, 
indomitable  perseverance,  and  an  almost  terrible  en 
ergy  ;  but  these  features  had  imparted  no  hardness 
to  his  character  in  private  intercourse.  In  the  hour 
of  public  need,  these  strong  qualities  would  have  shown 
themselves  the  most  prominent  ones,  and  would  have 
encouraged  his  countrymen  to  rally  round  him  as  one 
of  their  natural  leaders. 

In  his  private  and  domestic  relations,  Mr.  Cilley  was 
most  exemplary;  and  he  enjoyed  no  less  happiness 
than  he  conferred.  He  had  been  the  father  of  four 
children,  two  of  whom  were  in  the  grave,  leaving,  I 
thought,  a  more  abiding  impression  of  tenderness  and 
regret  than  the  death  of  infants  usually  makes  on  the 
masculine  mind.  Two  boys  —  the  elder,  seven  or 
eight  years  of  age ;  and  the  younger,  two  —  still  re 
mained  to  him ;  and  the  fondness  of  these  children  for 
their  father,  their  evident  enjoyment  of  his  society, 
was  proof  enough  of  his  gentle  and  amiable  character 
within  the  precincts  of  his  family.  In  that  bereaved 
household  there  is  now  another  child,  whom  the  father 
never  saw.  Mr.  Cilley 's  domestic  habits  were  simple 
and  primitive  to  a  degree  unusual,  in  most  parts  of 
our  country,  among  men  of  so  eminent  a  station  as  he 
had  attained.  It  made  me  smile,  though  with  any 
thing  but  scorn,  in  contrast  to  the  aristocratic  state- 
liness  which  I  have  witnessed  elsewhere,  to  see  him 
driving  home  his  own  cow  after  a  long  search  for  her 


JONATHAN  CILLEY.  273 

through  the  village.  That  trait  alone  would  have 
marked  him  as  a  man  whose  greatness  lay  within  him 
self.  He  appeared  to  take  much  interest  in  the  cul 
tivation  of  his  garden,  and  was  very  fond  of  flowers. 
He  kept  bees,  and  told  me  that  he  loved  to  sit  for 
whole  hours  by  the  hives,  watching  the  labors  of  the 
insects,  and  soothed  by  the  hum  with  which  they  filled 
the  air.  I  glance  at  these  minute  particulars  of  his 
daily  life,  because  they  form  so  strange  a  contrast  with 
the  circumstances  of  his  death.  Who  could  have  be 
lieved  that,  with  his  thoroughly  New  England  charac 
ter,  in  so  short  a  time  after  I  had  seen  him  in  that 
peaceful  and  happy  home,  among  those  simple  occu 
pations  and  pure  enjoyments,  he  would  be  stretched 
in  his  own  blood,  —  slain  for  an  almost  impalpable 
punctilio  ! 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  dwell  upon  Mr.  Cilley's 
brief  career  in  Congress.  Brief  as  it  was,  his  charac 
ter  and  talents  had  more  than  begun  to  be  felt,  and 
would  soon  have  linked  his  name  with  the  history  of 
every  important  measure,  and  have  borne  it  onward 
with  the  progress  of  the  principles  which  he  sup 
ported.  He  was  not  eager  to  seize  opportunities  of 
thrusting  himself  into  notice  ;  but,  when  time  and  the 
occasion  summoned  him,  he  came  forward,  and  poured 
forth  his  ready  and  natural  eloquence  with  as  much 
effect  in  the  councils  of  the  nation  as  he  had  done  in 
those  of  his  own  State.  With  every  effort  that  he 
made,  the  hopes  of  his  party  rested  more  decidedly 
upon  him,  as  one  who  would  hereafter  be  found  in 
the  vanguard  of  many  a  Democratic  victory.  Let  me 
spare  myself  the  details  of  the  awful  catastrophe  by 
which  all  those  proud  hopes  perished ;  for  I  write  with 
a  blunted  pen  and  a  head  benumbed,  and  am  the  less 

VOL.    XII.  18 


274  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

able  to  express  my  feelings  as  they  lie  deep  at  heart, 
and  inexhaustible. 

On  the  23d  of  February  last,  Mr.  Cilley  received  a 
challenge  from  Mr.  Graves  of  Kentucky,  through  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Wise  of  Virginia.  This  measure,  as  is 
declared  in  the  challenge  itself,  was  grounded  on  Mr. 
Cilley's  refusal  to  receive  a  message,  of  which  Mr. 
Graves  had  been  the  bearer,  from  a  person  of  disputed 
respectability ;  although  no  exception  to  that  person's 
character  had  been  expressed  by  Mr.  Cilley ;  nor  need 
such  inference  have  been  drawn,  unless  Mr.  Graves 
were  conscious  that  public  opinion  held  his  friend  in  a 
doubtful  light.  The  challenge  was  accepted,  and  the 
parties  met  on  the  following  day.  They  exchanged 
two  shots  with  rifles.  After  each  shot,  a  conference 
was  held  between  the  friends  of  both  parties,  and  the 
most  generous  avowals  of  respect  and  kindly  feeling 
were  made  on  the  part  of  Cilley  towards  his  antago 
nist,  but  without  avail.  A  third  shot  was  exchanged  ; 
and  Mr.  Cilley  fell  dead  into  the  arms  of  one  of  his 
friends.  While  I  write,  a  Committee  of  Investigation 
is  sitting  upon  this  affair :  but  the  public  has  not 
waited  for  its  award  ;  and  the  writer,  in  accordance 
with  the  public,  has  formed  his  opinion  on  the  official 
statement  of  Messrs.  Wise  and  Jones.  A  challenge 
was  never  given  on  a  more  shadowy  pretext ;  a  duel 
was  never  pressed  to  a  fatal  close  in  the  face  of  such 
open  kindness  as  was  expressed  by  Mr.  Cilley ;  and 
the  conclusion  is  inevitable,  that  Mr.  Graves  and  his 
principal  second,  Mr.  Wise,  have  gone  further  than 
their  own  dreadful  code  will  warrant  them,  and  over 
stepped  the  imaginary  distinction,  which,  on  their  own 
principles,  separates  manslaughter  from  murder. 

Alas  that  over  the  grave  of  a  dear  friend  my  sor- 


JONATHAN  CILLEY.  275 

row  for  the  bereavement  must  be  mingled  with  another 
grief,  —  that  he  threw  away  such  a  life  in  so  misera 
ble  a  cause  !  Why,  as  he  was  true  to  the  Northern 
character  in  all  things  else,  did  he  swerve  from  his 
Northern  principles  in  this  final  scene  ?  But  his  error 
was  a  generous  one,  since  he  fought  for  what  he 
deemed  the  honor  of  New  England ;  and,  now  that 
death  has  paid  the  forfeit,  the  most  rigid  may  forgive 
him.  If  that  dark  pitfall  —  that  bloody  grave  —  had 
not  lain  in  the  midst  of  his  path,  whither,  whither 
might  it  not  have  led  him !  It  has  ended  there  :  yet 
so  strong  was  my  conception  of  his  energies,  so  like 
destiny  did  it  appear  that  he  should  achieve  every 
thing  at  which  he  aimed,  that  even  now  my  fancy 
will  not  dwell  upon  his  grave,  but  pictures  him  still 
amid  the  struggles  and  triumphs  of  the  present  and 
the  future.1 
1838. 


i  A  very  subtile  and  searching  description  of  Cilley's  mental  and 
moral  qualities  is  given  in  Hawthorne's  American  Note-Books,  p.  75. 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL, 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 

BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF  THE  GENTLE  BOY. 


ON  a  pleasant  afternoon  of  June,  it  was  my  good 
fortune  to  be  the  companion  of  two  young  ladies  in  a 
walk.  The  direction  of  our  course  being  left  to  me, 
I  led  them  neither  to  Legge's  Hill,  nor  to  the  Cold 
Spring,  nor  to  the  rude  shores  and  old  batteries  of  the 
Neck,  nor  yet  to  Paradise  ;  though  if  the  latter  place 
were  rightly  named,  my  fair  friends  would  have  been 
at  home  there.  We  reached  the  outskirts  of  the  town, 
and  turning  aside  from  a  street  of  tanners  and  curriers, 
began  to  ascend  a  hill,  which  at  a  distance,  by  its  dark 
slope  and  the  even  line  of  its  summit,  resembled  a 
green  rampart  along  the  road.  It  was  less  steep  than 
its  aspect  threatened.  The  eminence  formed  part  of 
an  extensive  tract  of  pasture  land,  and  was  traversed 
by  cow  paths  in  various  directions  ;  but,  strange  to 
tell,  though  the  whole  slope  and  summit  were  of  a  pe 
culiarly  deep  green,  scarce  a  blade  of  grass  was  visible 
from  the  base  upward.  This  deceitful  verdure  was 
occasioned  by  a  plentiful  crop  of  "  wood-wax,"  which 
wears  the  same  dark  and  glossy  green  throughout  the 
summer,  except  at  one  short  period,  when  it  puts  forth 
a  profusion  of  yellow  blossoms.  At  that  season,  to  a 
distant  spectator,  the  hill  appears  absolutely  overlaid 
with  gold,  or  covered  with  a  glory  of  sunshine,  even 


280  ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 

beneath  a  clouded  sky.  Tut  the  curious  wanderer  on 
the  hill  will  perceive  that  all  the  grass,  and  everything 
that  should  nourish  man  or  beast,  has  been  destroyed 
by  this  vile  and  ineradicable  weed  :  its  tufted  roots 
make  the  soil  their  own,  and  permit  nothing  else  to 
vegetate  among  them  ;  so  that  a  physical  curse  may  be 
said  to  have  blasted  the  spot,  where  guilt  and  frenzy 
consummated  the  most  execrable  scene  that  our  Hs- 
tory  blushes  to  record.  For  this  was  the  field  where 
superstition  won  her  darkest  triumph  ;  the  high  place 
where  our  fathers  set  up  their  shame,  to  the  mournful 
gaze  of  generations  far  remote.  The  dust  of  martyrs 
was  beneath  our  feet.  We  stood  on  Gallows  Hill. 

For  my  own  part,  I  have  often  courted  the  historic 
influence  of  the  spot.  But  it  is  singular  how  few 
come  on  pilgrimage  to  this  famous  hill ;  how  many 
spend  their  lives  almost  at  its  base,  and  never  once 
obey  the  summons  of  the  shadowy  past,  as  it  beckons 
them  to  the  summit.  Till  a  year  or  two  since,  this 
portion  of  our  history  had  been  very  imperfectly  writ 
ten,  and,  as  we  are  not  a  people  of  legend  or  tradition, 
it  was  not  every  citizen  of  our  ancient  town  that  could 
tell,  within  half  a  century,  so  much  as  the  date  of  the 
witchcraft  delusion.  Recently,  indeed,  an  historian 
has  treated  the  subject  in  a  manner  that  will  keep  his 
name  alive,  in  the  only  desirable  connection  with  the 
errors  of  our  ancestry,  by  converting  the  hill  of  their 
disgrace  into  an  honorable  monument  of  his  own  anti 
quarian  lore,  and  of  that  better  wisdom,  which  draws 
the  moral  while  it  tells  the  tale.  But  we  are  a  people 
of  the  present,  and  have  no  heartfelt  interest  in  the 
olden  time.  Every  fifth  of  November,  in  commemora 
tion  of  they  know  not  what,  or  rather  without  an  idea 
beyond  the  momentary  blaze,  the  young  men  scare  the 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 


281 


town  with  bonfires  on  this  haunted  height,  but  never 
dream  of  paying  funeral  honors  to  those  who  died  so 
wrongfully,  and,  without  a  coffin  or  a  prayer,  were 
buried  here. 

Though  with  feminine  susceptibility,  my  companions 
caught  all  the  melancholy  associations  of  the  scene, 
yet  these  could  but  imperfectly  overcome  the  gayety  of 
girlish  spirits.     Their  emotions  came  and  went  with 
quick  vicissitude,  and  sometimes  combined  to  form  a 
peculiar  and  delicious  excitement,  the  mirth  brighten 
ing  the  gloom  into  a  sunny  shower  of  feeling,  and  a 
ratnbow  in  the  mind.     My  own  more  sombre  mood 
was  tinged  by  theirs.     With  now  a  merry  word  and 
next  a  sad  one,  we  trod  among  the  tangled  weeds,  and 
almost  hoped  that  our  feet  would  sink  into  the  hollow 
of  a  witch's  grave.     Such  vestiges  were  to  be  found 
within  the  memory  of  man,  but  have   vanished  now, 
and  with  them,  I  believe,  all  traces  of  the  precise  spot 
of  the  executions.    On  the  long  and  broad  ridge  of  the 
eminence,  there  is  no  very  decided   elevation  of  any 
one  point,  nor  other  prominent   marks,  except  the  de 
cayed  stumps  of  two  trees,  standing   near  each  other, 
and  here  and  there  the  rocky  substance  of  the  hill, 
peeping  just  above  the  wood-wax. 

There  are  few  such  prospects  pf  town  and  village, 
woodland  and  cultivated  field,  steeples  and  country 
seats,  as  we  beheld  from  this  unhappy  spot.  No  blight 
had  fallen  on  old  Essex  ;  all  was  prosperity  and  riches, 
healthfully  distributed.  Before  us  lay  our  native 
town,  extending  from  the  foot  of  the  hill  to  the  harbor, 
level  as  a  chess  board,  embraced  by  two  arms  of  the 
sea,  and  filling  the  whole  peninsula  with  a  close  assem 
blage  of  wooden  roofs,  overtopped  by  many  a  spire, 
and  intermixed  with  frequent  heaps  of  verdure,  where 


282  ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 

trees  threw  up  their  shade  from  unseen  trunks.  Be 
yond  was  the  bay  and  its  islands,  almost  the  only 
objects,  in  a  country  unmarked  by  strong  natural  fea 
tures,  on  which  time  and  human  toil  had  produced  no 
change.  Eetaining  these  portions  of  the  scene,  and 
also  the  peaceful  glory  and  tender  gloom  of  the  de 
clining  sun,  we  threw,  in  imagination,  a  veil  of  deep 
forest  over  the  land,  and  pictured  a  few  scattered  vil 
lages,  and  this  old  town  itself  a  village,  as  when  the 
prince  of  hell  bore  sway  there.  The  idea  thus  gained 
of  its  former  aspect,  its  quaint  edifices  standing  far 
apart,  with  peaked  roofs  and  projecting  stories,  and 
its  single  meeting-house  pointing  up  a  tall  spire  in 
the  midst ;  the  vision,  in  short,  of  the  town  in  1692, 
served  to  introduce  a  wondrous  tale  of  those  old 
times. 

I  had  brought  the  manuscript  in  my  pocket.  It 
was  one  of  a  series  written  years  ago,  when  my  pen, 
now  sluggish  and  perhaps  feeble,  because  I  have  not 
much  to  hope  or  fear,  was  driven  by  stronger  external 
motives,  and  a  more  passionate  impulse  within,  than  I 
am  fated  to  feel  again.  Three  or  four  of  these  tales 
had  appeared  in  the  "  Token,"  after  a  long  time  and 
various  adventures,  but  had  encumbered  me  with  no 
troublesome  notoriety,  even  in  my  birthplace.  One 
great  heap  had  met  a  brighter  destiny :  they  had  fed 
the  flames ;  thoughts  meant  to  delight  the  world  and 
endure  for  ages  had  perished  in  a  moment,  and  stirred 
not  a  single  heart  but  mine.  The  story  now  to  be  in 
troduced,  and  another,  chanced  to  be  in  kinder  custody 
at  the  time,  and  thus,  by  no  conspicuous  merits  of 
their  own,  escaped  destruction. 

The  ladies,  in  consideration  that  I  had  never  before 
intruded  my  performances  on  them,  by  any  but  the 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL.  283 

legitimate  medium,  through  the  press,  consented  to 
hear  me  read.  I  made  them  sit  down  on  a  moss- 
grown  rock,  close  by  the  spot  where  we  chose  to  be 
lieve  that  the  death  tree  had  stood.  After  a  little  hes 
itation  on  my  part,  caused  by  a  dread  of  renewing  my 
acquaintance  with  fantasies  that  had  lost  their  charm 
in  the  ceaseless  flux  of  mind,  I  began  the  tale,  which 
opened  darkly  with  the  discovery  of  a  murder. 


A  hundred  years,  and  nearly  half  that  time,  have 
elapsed  since  the  body  of  a  murdered  man  was  found, 
at  about  the  distance  of  three  miles,  on  the  old  road 
to  Boston.  He  lay  in  a  solitary  spot,  on  the  bank  of 
a  small  lake,  which  the  severe  frost  of  December  had 
covered  with  a  sheet  of  ice.  Beneath  this,  it  seemed 
to  have  been  the  intention  of  the  murderer  to  conceal 
his  victim  in  a  chill  and  watery  grave,  the  ice  being 
deeply  hacked,  perhaps  with  the  weapon  that  had 
slain  him,  though  its  solidity  was  too  stubborn  for  the 
patience  of  a  man  with  blood  upon  his  hand.  The 
corpse  therefore  reclined  on  the  earth,  but  was  sepa 
rated  from  the  road  by  a  thick  growth  of  dwarf  pines. 
There  had  been  a  slight  fall  of  snow  during  the  night, 
and  as  if  nature  were  shocked  at  the  deed,  and  strove 
to  hide  it  with  her  frozen  tears,  a  little  drifted  heap 
had  partly  buried  the  body,  and  lay  deepest  over  the 
pale  dead  face.  An  early  traveller,  whose  dog  had 
led  him  to  the  spot,  ventured  to  uncover  the  features, 
but  was  affrighted  by  their  expression.  A  look  of  evil 
and  scornful  triumph  had  hardened  on  them,  and 
made  death  so  life-like  and  so  terrible,  that  the  be 
holder  at  once  took  flight,  as  swiftly  as  if  the  stiffened 
corpse  would  rise  up  and  follow. 


284  ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 

I  read  on,  and  identified  the  body  as  that  of  a  young 
man,  a  stranger  in  the  country,  but  resident  during 
several  preceding  months  in  the  town  which  lay  at  our 
feet.  The  story  described,  at  some  length,  the  excite 
ment  caused  by  the  murder,  the  unavailing  quest  after 
the  perpetrator,  the  funeral  ceremonies,  and  other  com 
monplace  matters,  in  the  course  of  which,  I  brought 
forward  the  personages  who  were  to  move  among  the 
succeeding  events.  They  were  but  three.  A  young 
man  and  his  sister  ;  the  former  characterized  by  a  dis 
eased  imagination  and  morbid  feelings;  the  latter, 
beautiful  and  virtuous,  and  instilling  something  of  her 
own  excellence  into  the  wild  heart  of  her  brother,  but 
not  enough  to  cure  the  deep  taint  of  his  nature.  The 
third  person  was  a  wizard  ;  a  small,  gray,  withered 
man,  with  fiendish  ingenuity  in  devising  evil,  and  su 
perhuman  power  to  execute  it,  but  senseless  as  an 
idiot  and  feebler  than  a  child  to  all  better  purposes. 
The  central  scene  of  the  story  was  an  interview  be 
tween  this  wretch  and  Leonard  Doane,  in  the  wizard's 
hut,  situated  beneath  a  range  of  rocks  at  some  distance 
from  the  town.  They  sat  beside  a  mouldering  fire, 
while  a  tempest  of  wintry  rain  was  beating  on  the 
roof.  The  young  man  spoke  of  the  closeness  of  the  tie 
which  united  him  and  Alice,  the  consecrated  fervor  of 
their  affection  from  childhood  upwards,  their  sense  of 
lonely  sufficiency  to  each  other,  because  they  only  of 
their  race  had  escaped  death,  in  a  night  attack  by  the 
Indians.  He  related  his  discovery  or  suspicion  of  a 
secret  sympathy  between  his  sister  and  Walter  Brome, 
and  told  how  a  distempered  jealousy  had  maddened 
him.  In  the  following  passage,  I  threw  a  glimmering 
light  on  the  mystery  of  the  tale. 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL.  285 

"  Searching,"  continued  Leonard,  "into  the  breast  of 
Walter  Brome,  I  at  length  found  a  cause  why  Alice 
must  inevitably  love  him.     For  he  was  my  very  coun 
terpart  !      I  compared   his  mind  by  each  individual 
portion,  and  as  a  whole,  with  mine.     There  was  a  re 
semblance  from  which  I  shrunk  with  sickness,  and 
loathing,  and  horror,  as  if  my  own  features  had  come 
and  stared  upon  me  in  a  solitary  place,  or  had  met  me 
in  struggling  through  a  crowd.     Nay  !  the  very  same 
thoughts  would  often  express  themselves  in  the  same 
words  from  our  lips,  proving  a  hateful  sympathy  in 
our  secret  souls.     His  education,  indeed,  in  the  cities 
of  the  old  world,  and  mine  in  this  rude  wilderness,  had 
wrought  a  superficial  difference.     The  evil  of  his  char 
acter,  also,  had  been  strengthened  and  rendered  prom 
inent  by  a  reckless  and  ungoverned  life,  while  mine 
had  been  softened  and  purified  by  the  gentle  and  holy 
nature  of  Alice.     But  my  soul  had  been  conscious  of 
the  germ  of  all  the  fierce  and  deep  passions,  and  of  all 
the  many  varieties  of  wickedness,  which  accident  had 
brought  to  their  full  maturity  in   him.     Nor  will  I 
deny  that,  in  the  accursed  one,  I  could   see  the  with 
ered  blossom  of  every  virtue,  which,  by  a  happier  cul 
ture,  had  been  made  to  bring  forth  fruit  in  me.     Now, 
here  was  a  man  whom  Alice  might  love  with  all  the 
strength  of  sisterly  affection,  added  to  that  impure  pas 
sion  which  alone  engrosses  all  the  heart.    The  stranger 
would  have  more  than  the  love  which  had  been  gath 
ered  to  me  from  the  many  graves  of  our  household  — 
and  I  be  desolate !  " 


Leonard  Doane  went  on  to  describe  the  insane  ha 
tred  that  had  kindled  his  heart  into  a  volume  of  hel- 


286  ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 

lish  flame.  It  appeared,  indeed,  that  his  jealousy  had 
grounds,  so  far  as  that  Walter  Brome  had  actually 
sought  the  love  of  Alice,  who  also  had  betrayed  an  un- 
definable,  but  powerful  interest  in  the  unknown  youth. 
The  latter,  in  spite  of  his  passion  for  Alice,  seemed  to 
return  the  loathful  antipathy  of  her  brother ;  the  sim 
ilarity  of  their  dispositions  made  them  like  joint  pos 
sessors  of  an  individual  nature,  which  could  not  become 
wholly  the  property  of  one,  unless  by  the  extinction  of 
the  other.  At  last,  with  the  same  devil  in  each 
bosom,  they  chanced  to  meet,  they  two  on  a  lonely 
road.  While  Leonard  spoke,  the  wizard  had  sat  lis 
tening  to  what  he  already  knew,  yet  with  tokens  of 
pleasurable  interest,  manifested  by  flashes  of  expres 
sion  across  his  vacant  features,  by  grisly  smiles  and  by 
a  word  here  and  there,  mysteriously  filling  up  some 
void  in  the  narrative.  But  when  the  young  man  told 
how  Walter  Brome  had  taunted  him  with  indubitable 
proofs  of  the  shame  of  Alice,  and,  before  the  trium 
phant  sneer  could  vanish  from  his  face,  had  died  by 
her  brother's  hand,  the  wizard  laughed  aloud.  Leon 
ard  started,  but  just  then  a  gust  of  wind  came  down 
the  chimney,  forming  itself  into  a  close  resemblance  of 
the  slow,  unvaried  laughter,  by  which  he  had  been  in 
terrupted.  "  I  was  deceived,"  thought  he ;  and  thus 
pursued  his  fearful  story. 


"  I  trod  out  his  accursed  soul,  and  knew  that  he  was 
dead ;  for  my  spirit  bounded  as  if  a  chain  had  fallen 
from  it  and  left  me  free.  But  the  burst  of  exulting 
certainty  soon  fled,  and  was  succeeded  by  a  torpor 
over  my  brain  and  a  dimness  before  my  eyes,  with  the 
sensation  of  one  who  struggles  through  a  dream.  So 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL.  287 

I  bent  down  over  the  body  of  Walter  Brome,  gazing 
into  his  face,  and  striving  to  make  my  soul  glad  with 
the  thought,  that  he,  in  very  truth,  lay  dead  before  me. 
I  know  not  what  space  of  time  I  had  thus  stood,  nor 
how  the  vision  came.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  the 
irrevocable  years  since  childhood  had  rolled  back,  and 
a  scene,  that  had  long  been  confused  and  broken  in 
my  memory,  arrayed  itself  with  all  its  first  distinct 
ness.  Methought  I  stood  a  weeping  infant  by  my 
father's  hearth ;  by  the  cold  and  blood-stained  hearth 
where  he  lay  dead.  I  heard  the  childish  wail  of  Alice, 
and  my  own  cry  arose  with  hers,  as  we  beheld  the  fea 
tures  of  our  parent,  fierce  with  the  strife  and  distorted 
with  the  pain,  in  which  his  spirit  had  passed  away. 
As  I  gazed,  a  cold  wind  whistled  by,  and  waved  my 
father's  hair.  Immediately  I  stood  again  in  the  lone 
some  road,  no  more  a  sinless  child,  but  a  man  of  blood, 
whose  tears  were  falling  fast  over  the  face  of  his  dead 
enemy.  But  the  delusion  was  not  wholly  gone  ;  that 
face  still  wore  a  likeness  of  my  father ;  and  because 
my  soul  shrank  from  the  fixed  glare  of  the  eyes,  I 
bore  the  body  to  the  lake,  and  would  have  buried  it 
there.  But  before  his  icy  sepulchre  was  hewn,  I  heard 
the  voices  of  two  travellers  and  fled." 


Such  was  the  dreadful  confession  of  Leonard  Doane. 
And  now  tortured  by  the  idea  of  his  sister's  guilt,  yet 
sometimes  yielding  to  a  conviction  of  her  purity ;  stung 
with  remorse  for  the  death  of  Walter  Brome,  and 
shuddering  with  a  deeper  sense  of  some  unutterable 
crime,  perpetrated,  as  he  imagined,  in  madness  or  a 
dream;  moved  also  by  dark  impulses,  as  if  a  fiend 
were  whispering  him  to  meditate  violence  against  the 


288  ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 

life  of  Alice ;  he  had  sought  this  interview  with  the 
wizard,  who,  on  certain  conditions,  had  no  power  to 
withhold  his  aid  in  unravelling  the  mystery.  The  tale 
drew  near  its  close. 


The  moon  was  bright  on  high  ;  the  blue  firmament 
appeared  to  glow  with  an  inherent  brightness  ;  the 
greater  stars  were  burning  in  their  spheres  ;  the  north 
ern  lights  threw  their  mysterious  glare  far  over  the 
horizon ;  the  few  small  clouds  aloft  were  burdened 
with  radiance ;  but  the  sky,  with  all  its  variety  of  light, 
was  scarcely  so  brilliant  as  the  earth.  The  rain  of 
the  preceding  night  had  frozen  as  it  fell,  and,  by  that 
simple  magic,  had  wrought  wonders.  The  trees  were 
hung  with  diamonds  and  many -colored  gems  ;  the 
houses  were  overlaid  with  silver,  and  the  streets  paved 
with  slippery  brightness ;  a  frigid  glory  was  flung  over 
all  familiar  things,  from  the  cottage  chimney  to  the 
steeple  of  the  meeting-house,  that  gleamed  upward  to 
the  sky.  This  living  world,  where  we  sit  by  our  fire 
sides,  or  go  forth  to  meet  beings  like  ourselves,  seemed 
rather  the  creation  of  wizard  power,  with  so  much  of 
resemblance  to  known  objects  that  a  man  might  shud 
der  at  the  ghostly  shape  of  his  old  beloved  dwelling, 
and  the  shadow  of  a  ghostly  tree  before  his  door.  One 
looked  to  behold  inhabitants  suited  to  such  a  town, 
glittering  in  icy  garments,  with  motionless  features, 
cold,  sparkling  eyes,  and  just  sensation  enough  in  their 
frozen  hearts  to  shiver  at  each  other's  presence. 


By  this  fantastic  piece  of  description,  and  more  in 
the  same  style,  I  intended  to  throw  a  ghostly  glimmer 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL.  289 

round  the  reader,  so  that  his  imagination  might  view 
the  town  through  a  medium  that  should  take  off  its 
every-day  aspect,  and  make  it  a  proper  theatre  for  so 
wild  a  scene  as  the  final  one.  Amid  this  unearthly 
show,  the  wretched  brother  and  sister  were  represented 
as  setting  forth,  at  midnight,  through  the  gleaming 
streets,  and  directing  their  steps  to  a  graveyard,  where 
all  the  dead  had  been  laid,  from  the  first  corpse  in  that 
ancient  town,  to  the  murdered  man  who  was  buried 
three  days  before.  As  they  went,  they  seemed  to  see 
the  wizard  gliding  by  their  sides,  or  walking  dimly  on 
the  path  before  them.  But  here  I  paused,  and  gazed 
into  the  faces  of  my  two  fair  auditors,  to  judge 
whether,  even  on  the  hill  where  so  many  had  been 
brought  to  death  by  wilder  tales  than  this,  I  might 
venture  to  proceed.  Their  bright  eyes  were  fixed  on 
me  ;  their  lips  apart.  I  took  courage,  and  led  the 
fated  pair  to  a  new  made  grave,  where  for  a  few  mo 
ments,  in  the  bright  and  silent  midnight,  they  stood 
alone.  But  suddenly  there  was  a  multitude  of  people 
among  the  graves. 


Each  family  tomb  had  given  up  its  inhabitants,  who, 
one  by  one,  through  distant  years,  had  been  borne  to 
its  dark  chamber,  but  now  came  forth  and  stood  in  a 
pale  group  together.  There  was  the  gray  ancestor,  the 
aged  mother,  and  all  their  descendants,  some  withered 
and  full  of  years,  like  themselves,  and  others  in  their 
prime  ;  there,  too,  were  the  children  who  went  prattling 
to  the  tomb,  and  there  the  maiden  who  yielded  her 
early  beauty  to  death's  embrace,  before  passion  had 
polluted  it.  Husbands  and  wives  arose,  who  had  lain 
many  years  side  by  side,  and  young  mothers  who  had 

VOL.    XII.  19 


290  ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 

forgotten  to  kiss  their  first  babes,  though  pillowed  so 
long  on  their  bosoms.  Many  had  been  buried  in  the 
habiliments  of  life,  and  still  wore  their  ancient  garb ; 
some  were  old  defenders  of  tho  infant  colony,  and 
gleamed  forth  in  their  steel -caps  and  bright  breast 
plates,  as  if  starting  up  at  an  Indian  war-cry ;  other 
venerable  shapes  had  been  pastors  of  the  church,  fa 
mous  among  the  New  England  clergy,  and  now  leaned 
with  hands  clasped  over  their  gravestones,  ready  to 
call  the  congregation  to  prayer.  There  stood  the 
early  settlers,  those  old  illustrious  ones,  the  heroes  of 
tradition  and  fireside  legends,  the  men  of  history  whose 
features  had. been  so  long  beneath  the  sod  that  few 
alive  could  have  remembered  them.  There,  too,  were 
faces  of  former  towns-people,  dimly  recollected  from 
childhood,  and  others,  whom  Leonard  and  Alice  had 
wept  in  later  years,  but  who  now  were  most  terrible 
of  all,  by  their  ghastly  smile  of  recognition.  All, 
in  short,  were  there;  the  dead  of  other  generations, 
whose  moss-grown  names  could  scarce  be  read  upon 
their  tombstones,  and  their  successors,  whose  graves 
were  not  yet  green  ;  all  whom  black  funerals  had 
followed  slowly  thither  now  reappeared  where  the 
mourners  left  them.  Yet  none  but  souls  accursed 
were  there,  and  fiends  counterfeiting  the  likeness  of 
departed  saints. 

The  countenances  of  those  venerable  men,  whose 
very  features  had  been  hallowed  by  lives  of  piety,  were 
contorted  now  by  intolerable  pain  or  hellish  passion, 
and  now  by  an  unearthly  and  derisive  merriment. 
Had  the  pastors  prayed,  all  saintlike  as  they  seemed, 
it  had  been  blasphemy.  The  chaste  matrons,  too,  and 
the  maidens  with  untasted  lips,  who  had  slept  in  their 
virgin  graves  apart  from  all  other  dust,  now  wore  a 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL.  291 

look  from  which  the  two  trembling  mortals  shrank,  as 
if  the  unimaginable  sin  of  twenty  worlds  were  collected 
there.  The  faces  of  fond  lovers,  even  of  such  as  had 
pined  into  the  tomb,  because  there  their  treasure  was, 
were  bent  on  one  another  with  glances  of  hatred  and 
smiles  of  bitter  scorn,  passions  that  are  to  devils  what 
love  is  to  the  blest.  At  times,  the  features  of  those 
who  had  passed  from  a  holy  life  to  heaven  would  vary 
to  and  fro,  between  their  assumed  aspect  and  the  fiend 
ish  lineaments  whence  they  had  been  transformed. 
The  whole  miserable  multitude,  both  sinful  souls  and 
false  spectres  of  good  men,  groaned  horribly  and 
gnashed  their  teeth,  as  they  looked  upward  to  the 
calm  loveliness  of  the  midnight  sky,  and  beheld  those 
homes  of  bliss  where  they  must  never  dwell.  Such 
was  the  apparition,  though  too  shadowy  for  language 
to  portray ;  for  here  would  be  the  moonbeams  on  the 
ice,  glittering  through  a  warrior's  breastplate,  and 
there  the  letters  of  a  tombstone,  on  the  form  that 
stood  before  it ;  and  whenever  a  breeze  went  by,  it 
swept  the  old  men's  hoary  heads,  the  women's  fearful 
beauty,  and  all  the  unreal  throng,  into  one  indistin 
guishable  cloud  together. 


I  dare  not  give  the  remainder  of  the  scene,  except 
in  a  very  brief  epitome.  This  company  of  devils  and 
condemned  souls  had  come  on  a  holiday,  to  revel  in 
the  discovery  of  a  complicated  crime  ;  as  foul  a  one  as 
ever  was  imagined  in  their  dreadful  abode.  In  the 
course  of  the  tale,  the  reader  had  been  permitted  to 
discover  that  all  the  incidents  were  results  of  the  ma 
chinations  of  the  wizard,  who  had  cunningly  devised 
that  Walter  Brome  should  tempt  his  unknown  sister 


292  ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 

to  guilt  and  shame,  and  himself  perish  by  the  hand  of 
his  twin-brother.  I  described  the  glee  of  the  fiends  at 
this  hideous  conception,  and  their  eagerness  to  know 
if  it  were  consummated.  The  story  concluded  with 
the  Appeal  of  Alice  to  the  spectre  of  Walter  Brome  ; 
his  reply,  absolving  her  from  every  stain ;  and  the 
trembling  awe  with  which  ghost  and  devil  fled,  as 
from  the  sinless  presence  of  an  angel. 

The  sun  had  gone  down.  While  I  held  my  page  of 
wonders  in  the  fading  light,  and  read  how  Alice  and 
her  brother  were  left  alone  among  the  graves,  my  voice 
mingled  with  the  sigh  of  a  summer  wind,  which  passed 
over  the  hill -top,  with  the  broad  and  hollow  sound 
as  of  the  flight  of  unseen  spirits.  Not  a  word  was 
spoken  till  I  added  that  the  wizard's  grave  was  close 
beside  us,  and  that  the  wood-wax  had  sprouted  origi 
nally  from  his  unhallowed  bones.  The  ladies  started  ; 
perhaps  their  cheeks  might  have  grown  pale  had  not 
the  crimson  west  been  blushing  on  them ;  but  after  a 
moment  they  began  to  laugh,  while  the  breeze  took  a 
livelier  motion,  as  if  responsive  to  their  mirth.  I  kept 
an  awful  solemnity  of  visage,  being,  indeed,  a  little 
piqued  that  a  narrative  which  had  good  authority  in 
our  ancient  superstitions,  and  would  have  brought  even 
a  church  deacon  to  Gallows  Hill,  in  old  witch  times, 
should  now  be  considered  too  grotesque  and  extrava 
gant  for  timid  maids  to  tremble  at.  Though  it  was 
past  supper  time,  I  detained  them  a  while  longer  on 
the  hill,  and  made  a  trial  whether  truth  were  more 
powerful  than  fiction. 

We  looked  again  towards  the  town,  no  longer  ar 
rayed  in  that  icy  splendor  of  earth,  tree,  and  edifice,  be 
neath  the  glow  of  a  wintry  midnight,  which  shining  afar 
through  the  gloom  of  a  century  had  made  it  appear 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL.  293 

the  very  home  of  visions  in  visionary  streets.     An  in 
distinctness  had  begun  to  creep  over  the  mass  of  build 
ings  and  blend  them  with  the  intermingled  tree-tops, 
except  where  the  roof  of  a  statelier  mansion,  and  the 
steeples  and   brick   towers   of    churches,  caught  the 
brightness  of  some  cloud  that  yet  floated  in  the  sun 
shine.     Twilight  over  the  landscape  was  congenial  to 
the  obscurity  of  time.     With  such  eloquence  as  my 
share  of  feeling  and  fancy  could  supply,  I  called  back 
hoar  antiquity,  and  bade  my  companions  imagine  an 
ancient  multitude  of  people,  congregated  on  the  hill 
side,  spreading  far  below,  clustering  on  the  steep  old 
roofs,  and  climbing  the  adjacent  heights,  wherever  a 
glimpse  of  this  spot  might  be  obtained.     I  strove  to 
realize  and  faintly  communicate  the  deep,  unutterable 
loathing  and  horror,  the  indignation,  the  affrighted 
wonder,  that  wrinkled  on  every  brow,  and  filled  the 
universal  heart.     See !  the  whole  crowd  turns  pale  and 
shrinks  within  itself,  as  the  virtuous  emerge  from  yon 
der  street.     Keeping  pace  with  that  devoted  company, 
I  described  them  one  by  one ;  here  tottered  a  woman 
in  her  dotage,  knowing  neither  the  crime  imputed  her, 
nor  its  punishment ;  there  another,  distracted  by  the 
universal  madness,  till  feverish   dreams  were  remem 
bered  as  realities,  and  she  almost  believed  her  guilt. 
One,  a  proud  man  once,  was  so  broken  down  by  the 
intolerable  hatred  heaped  upon  him,  that  he  seemed 
to  hasten  his  steps,  eager  to  hide  himself  in  the  grave 
hastily  dug  at  the  foot  of  the  gallows.     As  they  went 
slowly  on,  a  mother  looked  behind,  and  beheld  her 
peaceful  dwelling  ;  she  cast  her  eyes  elsewhere,  and 
groaned  inwardly  yet  with  bitterest  anguish,  for  there 
was  her  little  son  among  the  accusers.     I  watched  the 
face  of  an  ordained  pastor,  who  walked  onward  to  the 


294  ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL. 

same  death ;  his  lips  moved  in  prayer ;  no  narrow  pe 
tition  for  himself  alone,  but  embracing  all  his  fellow- 
sufferers  and  the  frenzied  multitude ;  he  looked  to 
Heaven  and  trod  lightly  up  the  hill. 

Behind  their  victims  came  the  afflicted,  a  guilty  and 
miserable  band ;  villains  who  had  thus  avenged  them 
selves  on  their  enemies,  and  viler  wretches,  whose  cow 
ardice  had  destroyed  their  friends  ;  lunatics,  whose 
ravings  had  chimed  in  with  the  madness  of  the  land  ; 
and  children,  who  had  played  a  game  that  the  imps  of 
darkness  might  have  envied  them,  since  it  disgraced 
an  age,  and  dipped  a  people's  hands  in  blood.  In  the 
rear  of  the  procession  rode  a  figure  on  horseback,  so 
darkly  conspicuous,  so  sternly  triumphant,  that  my 
hearers  mistook  him  for  the  visible  presence  of  the 
fiend  himself ;  but  it  was  only  his  good  friend,  Cotton 
Mather,  proud  of  his  well-won  dignity,  as  the  repre 
sentative  of  all  the  hateful  features  of  his  time ;  the 
one  blood  -  thirsty  man,  in  whom  were  concentrated 
those  vices  of  spirit  and  errors  of  opinion  that  sufficed 
to  madden  the  whole  surrounding  multitude.  And 
thus  I  marshalled  them  onward,  the  innocent  who 
were  to  die,  and  the  guilty  who  were  to  grow  old  in 
long  remorse  —  tracing  their  every  step,  by  rock,  and 
shrub,  and  broken  track,  till  their  shadowy  visages 
had  circled  round  the  hill -top,  where  we  stood.  I 
plunged  into  my  imagination  for  a  blacker  horror,  and 
a  deeper  woe,  and  pictured  the  scaffold 

But  here  my  companions  seized  an  arm  on  each 
side ;  their  nerves  were  trembling ;  and,  sweeter  vic 
tory  still,  I  had  reached  the  seldom  trodden  places  of 
their  hearts,  and  found  the  well-spring  of  their  tears. 
And  now  the  past  had  done  all  it  could.  We  slowly 
descended,  watching  the  lights  as  they  twinkled  grad- 


ALICE  DOANE'S  APPEAL.  295 

ually  through  the  town,  and  listening  to  the  distant 
mirth  of  boys  at  play,  and  to  the  voice  of  a  young  girl 
warbling  somewhere  in  the  dusk,  a  pleasant  sound  to 
wanderers  from  old  witch  times.  Yet,  ere  we  left  the 
hill,  we  could  not  but  regret  that  there  is  nothing  on 
its  barren  summit,  no  relic  of  old,  nor  lettered  stone 
of  later  days,  to  assist  the  imagination  in  appealing 
to  the  heart.  We  build  the  memorial  column  on  the 
height  which  our  fathers  made  sacred  with  their  blood, 
poured  out  in  a  holy  cause.  And  here,  in  dark,  fu 
nereal  stone,  should  rise  another  monument,  sadly 
commemorative  of  the  errors  of  an  earlier  race,  and 
not  to  be  cast  down,  while  the  human  heart  has  one 
infirmity  that  may  result  in  crime. 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT  WAK  MATTEES. 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT  WAR  MATTERS. 

BY  A  PEACEABLE   MAN. 


[This  article  appeared  in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  for  July, 
1862,  and  is  now  first  reprinted  among  Hawthorne's  collected 
writings.  The  editor  of  the  magazine  objected  to  sundry  para 
graphs  in  the  manuscript,  and  these  were  cancelled  with  the  con 
sent  of  the  author,  who  himself  supplied  all  the  foot-notes  that 
accompanied  the  article  when  it  was  published.  It  has  seemed 
best  to  retain  them  in  the  present  reproduction.  One  of  the  sup 
pressed  passages,  in  which  President  Lincoln  is  described,  has 
since  been  printed,  and  is  therefore  restored  to  its  proper  place 
in  the  following  pages.  —  G.  P.  L.] 

THERE  is  no  remoteness  of  life  and  thought,  no  her 
metically  sealed  seclusion,  except,  possibly,  that  of  the 
grave,  into  which  the  disturbing  influences  of  this  war 
do  not  penetrate.  Of  course,  the  general  heart-quake 
of  the  country  long  ago  knocked  at  my  cottage-door, 
and  compelled  me,  reluctantly,  to  suspend  the  contem 
plation  of  certain  fantasies,  to  which,  according  to  my 
harmless  custom,  I  was  endeavoring  to  give  a  suffi 
ciently  life-like  aspect  to  admit  of  their  figuring  in  a 
romance.  As  I  make  no  pretensions  to  state-craft  or 
soldiership,  and  could  promote  the  common  weal  nei 
ther  by  valor  nor  counsel,  it  seemed,  at  first,  a  pity 
that  I  should  be  debarred  from  such  unsubstantial 
business  as  I  had  contrived  for  myself,  since  nothing 
more  genuine  was  to  be  substituted  for  it.  But  I 


300          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

magnanimously  considered  that  there  is  a  kind  of  trea 
son  in  insulating  one's  self  from  the  universal  fear  and 
sorrow,  and  thinking  one's  idle  thoughts  in  the  dread 
time  of  civil  war;  and  could  a  man  be  so  cold  and 
hard-hearted,  he  would  better  deserve  to  be  sent  to 
Fort  Warren  than  many  who  have  found  their  way 
thither  on  the  score  of  violent,  but  misdirected  sym 
pathies.  I  remembered  the  touching  rebuke  admin 
istered  by  King  Charles  to  that  rural  squire  the  echo 
of  whose  hunting-horn  came  to  the  poor  monarch's  ear 
on  the  morning  before  a  battle,  where  the  sovereignty 
and  constitution  of  England  were  to  be  set  at  a  stake. 
So  I  gave  myself  up  to  reading  newspapers  and  listen 
ing  to  the  click  of  the  telegraph,  like  other  people; 
until,  after  a  great  many  months  of  such  pastime,  it 
grew  so  abominably  irksome  that  I  determined  to  look 
a  little  more  closely  at  matters  with  my  own  eyes. 

Accordingly  we  set  out  —  a  friend  and  myself  —  to 
wards  Washington,  while  it  was  still  the  long,  dreary 
January  of  our  Northern  year,  though  March  in  name; 
nor  were  we  unwiDing  to  clip  a  little  margin  off  the 
five  months'  winter,  during  which  there  is  nothing  ge 
nial  in  New  England  save  the  fireside.  It  was  a  clear, 
frosty  morning,  when  we  started.  The  sun  shone 
brightly  on  snow  -  covered  hills  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Boston,  and  burnished  the  surface  of  frozen  ponds ; 
and  the  wintry  weather  kept  along  with  us  while  we 
trundled  through  Worcester  and  Springfield,  and  all 
those  old,  familiar  towns,  and  through  the  village-cit 
ies  of  Connecticut.  In  New  York  the  streets  were 
af.oat  with  liquid  mud  and  slosh.  Over  New  Jersey 
there  was  still  a  thin  covering  of  snow,  with  the  face 
of  Nature  visible  through  the  rents  in  her  white 
shroud,  though  with  little  or  no  symptom  of  reviving 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         301 

life.  But  when  we  reached  Philadelphia,  the  air  was 
mild  and  balmy ;  there  was  but  a  patch  or  two  of  dingy 
winter  here  and  there,  and  the  bare,  brown  fields  about 
the  city  were  ready  to  be  green.  We  had  met  the 
Spring  half-way,  in  her  slow  progress  from  the  South ; 
and  if  we  kept  onward  at  the  same  pace,  and  could  get 
through  the  Rebel  lines,  we  should  soon  come  to  fresh 
grass,  fruit-blossoms,  green  peas,  strawberries,  and  all 
such  delights  of  early  summer. 

On  our  way,  we  heard  many  rumors  of  the  war,  but 
saw  few  signs  of  it.  The  people  were  staid  and  deco 
rous,  according  to  their  ordinary  fashion ;  and  business 
seemed  about  as  brisk  as  usual,  —  though,  I  suppose, 
it  was  considerably  diverted  from  its  customary  chan 
nels  into  warlike  ones.  In  the  cities,  especially  in  New 
York,  there  was  a  rather  prominent  display  of  military 
goods  at  the  shop  windows,  —  such  as  swords  with 
gilded  scabbards  and  trappings,  epaulets,  carabines,  re 
volvers,  and  sometimes  a  great  iron  cannon  at  the 
edge  of  the  pavement,  as  if  Mars  had  dropped  one  of 
his  pocket-pistols  there,  while  hurrying  to  the  field. 
As  railway-companions,  we  had  now  and  then  a  volun 
teer  in  his  French-gray  great-coat,  returning  from  fur 
lough,  or  a  new-made  officer  travelling  to  join  his  regi 
ment,  in  his  new-made  uniform,  which  was  perhaps  all 
of  the  military  character  that  he  had  about  him, — but 
proud  of  his  eagle-buttons,  and  likely  enough  to  do 
them  honor  before  the  gilt  should  be  wholly  dimmed. 
The  country,  in  short,  so  far  as  bustle  and  movement 
went,  was  more  quiet  than  in  ordinary  times,  because 
so  large  a  proportion  of  its  restless  elements  had  been 
drawn  towards  the  seat  of  the  conflict.  But  the  air 
was  full  of  a  vague  disturbance.  To  me,  at  least,  it 
seemed  so,  emerging  from  such  a  solitude  as  has  been 


302          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

hinted  at,  and  the  more  impressible  by  rumors  and 
indefinable  presentiments,  since  I  had  not  lived,  like 
other  men,  in  an  atmosphere  of  continual  talk  about 
the  war.  A  battle  was  momentarily  expected  on  the 
Potomac  ;  for,  though  our  army  was  still  on  the  hither 
side  of  the  river,  all  of  us  were  looking  towards  the 
mysterious  and  terrible  Manassas,  with  the  idea  that 
somewhere  in  its  neighborhood  lay  a  ghastly  battle 
field,  yet  to  be  fought,  but  foredoomed  of  old  to  be 
bloodier  than  the  one  where  we  had  reaped  such 
shame.  Of  all  haunted  places,  methinks  such  a  des 
tined  field  should  be  thickest  thronged  with  ugly  phan 
toms,  ominous  of  mischief  through  ages  beforehand. 

Beyond  Philadelphia  there  was  a  much  greater 
abundance  of  military  people.  Between  Baltimore  and 
Washington  a  guard  seemed  to  hold  every  station 
along  the  railroad ;  and  frequently,  on  the  hill-sides, 
we  saw  a  collection  of  weather-beaten  tents,  the  peaks 
of  which,  blackened  with  smoke,  indicated  that  they 
had  been  made  comfortable  by  stove-heat  throughout 
the  winter.  At  several  commanding  positions  we  saw 
fortifications,  with  the  muzzles  of  cannon  protruding 
from  the  ramparts,  the  slopes  of  which  were  made  of 
the  yellow  earth  of  that  region,  and  still  unsodded  ; 
whereas,  till  these  troublous  times,  there  have  been  no 
forts  but  what  were  grass-grown  with  the  lapse  of  at 
least  a  lifetime  of  peace.  Our  stopping -places  were 
thronged  with  soldiers,  some  of  whom  came  through 
the  cars  asking  for  newspapers  that  contained  accounts 
of  the  battle  between  the  Merrimack  and  Monitor, 
which  had  been  fought  the  day  before.  A  railway- 
train  met  us,  conveying  a  regiment  out  of  Washington 
to  some  unknown  point ;  and  reaching  the  capital,  we 
filed  out  of  the  station  between  lines  of  soldiers,  with 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         308 

shouldered  muskets,  putting  us  in  mind  of  similar  spec 
tacles  at  the  gates  of  European  cities.  It  was  not  with 
out  sorrow  that  we  saw  the  free  circulation  of  the  na 
tion's  life-blood  (at  the  very  heart,  moreover)  clogged 
with  such  strictures  as  these,  which  have  caused  chronic 
diseases  in  almost  all  countries  save  our  own.  Will 
the  time  ever  come  again,  in  America,  when  we  may 
live  half  a  score  of  years  without  once  seeing  the  like 
ness  of  a  soldier,  except  it  be  in  the  festal  march  of  a 
company  on  its  summer  tour  ?  Not  in  this  genera 
tion,  I  fear,  nor  in  the  next,  nor  till  the  Millennium  ; 
and  even  that  blessed  epoch,  as  the  prophecies  seem 
to  intimate,  will  advance  to  the  sound  of  the  trumpet. 
One  terrible  idea  occurs  in  reference  to  this  matter. 
Even  supposing  the  war  should  end  to-morrow,  and 
the  army  melt  into  the  mass  of  the  population  within 
the  year,  what  an  incalculable  preponderance  will  there 
be  of  military  titles  and  pretensions  for  at  least  half  a 
century  to  come!  Every  country-neighborhood  will 
have  its  general  or  two,  its  three  or  four  colonels,  half 
a  dozen  majors,  and  captains  without  end,  —  besides 
non-commissioned  officers  and  privates,  more  than  the 
recruiting  offices  ever  knew  of,  —  all  with  their  cam 
paign-stories,  which  will  become  the  staple  of  fireside- 
talk  forevermore.  Military  merit,  or  rather,  since  that 
is  not  so  readily  estimated,  military  notoriety,  will  be 
the  measure  of  all  claims  to  civil  distinction.  One 
bullet-headed  general  will  succeed  another  in  the  Pres 
idential  chair;  and  veterans  will  hold  the  offices  at 
home  and  abroad,  and  sit  in  Congress  and  the  state 
legislatures,  and  fill  all  the  avenues  of  public  life. 
And  yet  I  do  not  speak  of  this  deprecatingly,  since, 
very  likely,  it  may  substitute  something  more  real  and 
genuine,  instead  of  the  many  shams  on  which  men 


304          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS. 

have  heretofore  founded  their  claims  to  public  regard ; 
but  it  behooves  civilians  to  consider  their  wretched 
prospects  in  the  future,  and  assume  the  military  button 
before  it  is  too  late. 

We  were  not  in  time  to  see  Washington  as  a  camp. 
On  the  very  day  of  our  arrival  sixty  thousand  men 
had  crossed  the  Potomac  on  their  march  towards  Ma- 
nassas  ;  and  almost  with  their  first  step  into  the  Vir 
ginia  mud,  the  phantasmagory  of  a  countless  host  and 
impregnable  ramparts,  before  which  they  had  so  long 
remained  quiescent,  dissolved  quite  away.  It  was  as 
if  General  McClellan  had  thrust  his  sword  into  a  gigan 
tic  enemy,  and,  beholding  him  suddenly  collapse,  had 
discovered  to  himself  and  the  world  that  he  had  merely 
punctured  an  enormously  swollen  bladder.  There  are 
instances  of  a  similar  character  in  old  romances,  where 
great  armies  are  long  kept  at  bay  by  the  arts  of  nec 
romancers,  who  build  airy  towers  and  battlements, 
and  muster  warriors  of  terrible  aspect,  and  thus  feign 
a  defence  of  seeming  impregnability,  until  some  bolder 
champion  of  the  besiegers  dashes  forward  to  try  an 
encounter  with  the  foremost  foeman,  and  finds  him 
melt  away  in  the  death-grapple.  With  such  heroic 
adventures  let  the  march  upon  Manassas  be  hereafter 
reckoned.  The  whole  business,  though  connected  with 
the  destinies  of  a  nation,  takes  inevitably  a  tinge  of 
the  ludicrous.  The  vast  .preparation  of  men  and  war 
like  material,  —  the  majestic  patience  and  docility 
with  which  the  people  waited  through  those  weary  and 
dreary  months,  —  the  martial  skill,  courage,  and  cau 
tion,  with  which  our  movement  was  ultimately  made, 
—  and,  at  last,  the  tremendous  shock  with  which  we 
were  brought  suddenly  up  against  nothing  at  all  I  The 
Southerners  show  little  sense  of  humor  nowadays,  but 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         305 

I  think  they  must  have  meant  to  provoke  a  laugh  at 
our  expense,  when  they  planted  those  Quaker  guns. 
At  all  events,  no  other  Rebel  artillery  has  played  upon 
us  with  such  overwhelming  effect. 

The  troops  being  gone,  we  had  the  better  leisure 
and  opportunity  to  look  into  other  matters.  It  is  nat 
ural  enough  to  suppose  that  the  centre  and  heart  of 
Washington  is  the  Capitol ;  and  certainly,  in  its  out 
ward  aspect,  the  world  has  not  many  statelier  or  more 
beautiful  edifices,  nor  any,  I  should  suppose,  more 
skilfully  adapted  to  legislative  purposes,  and  to  all  ac 
companying  needs.  But,  etc.,  etc.1 

We  found  one  man,  however,  at  the  Capitol,  who  was 
satisfactorily  adequate  to  the  business  which  brought 
him  thither.  In  quest  of  him,  we  went  through  halls, 
galleries,  and  corridors,  and  ascended  a  noble  stair 
case,  balustraded  with  a  dark  and  beautifully  varie 
gated  marble  from  Tennessee,  the  richness  of  which  is 
quite  a  sufficient  cause  for  objecting  to  the  secession 
of  that  State.  At  last  we  came  to  a  barrier  of  pine 
boards,  built  right  across  the  stairs.  Knocking  at  a 
rough,  temporary  door,  we  thrust  a  card  beneath ;  and 
in  a  minute  or  two  it  was  opened  by  a  person  in  his 
shirt-sleeves,  a  middle-aged  figure,  neither  tall  nor 
short,  of  Teutonic  build  and  aspect,  with  an  ample 
beard  of  a  ruddy  tinge  and  chestnut  hair.  He  looked 
at  us,  in  the  first  place,  with  keen  and  somewhat 
guarded  eyes,  as  if  it  were  not  his  practice  to  vouchsafe 

1  We  omit  several  paragraphs  here,  in  which  the  author  speaks  of 
some  prominent  Members  of  Congress  with  a  freedom  that  seems  to 
have  been  not  unkindly  meant,  but  might  be  liable  to  misconstruction. 
As  he  admits  that  he  never  listened  to  an  important  debate,  we  can 
hardly  recognize  his  qualifications  to  estimate  these  gentlemen,  in 
their  legislative  and  oratorical  capacities. 
VOL.  xii.  20 


306          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

any  great  warmth  of  greeting,  except  upon  sure  ground 
of  observation.  Soon,  however,  his  look  grew  kindly 
and  genial  (not  that  it  had  ever  been  in  the  least 
degree  repulsive,  but  only  reserved),  and  Leutze  al 
lowed  us  to  gaze  at  the  cartoon  of  his  great  fresco, 
and  talked  about  it  unaffectedly,  as  only  a  man  of  true 
genius  can  speak  of  his  own  works.  Meanwhile  the 
noble  design  spoke  for  itself  upon  the  wall.  A  sketch 
in  color,  which  we  saw  afterwards,  helped  us  to  form 
some  distant  and  flickering  notion  of  what  the  picture 
will  be,  a  few  months  hence,  when  these  bare  outlines, 
already  so  rich  in  thought  and  suggestiveness,  shall 
glow  with  a  fire  of  their  own,  —  a  fire  which,  I  truly 
believe,  will  consume  every  other  pictorial  decoration 
of  the  Capitol,  or,  at  least,  will  compel  us  to  banish 
those  stiff  and  respectable  productions  to  some  less 
conspicuous  gallery.  The  work  will  be  emphatically 
original  and  American,  embracing  characteristics  that 
neither  art  nor  literature  have  yet  dealt  with,  and  pro 
ducing  new  forms  of  artistic  beauty  from  the  natural 
features  of  the  Rocky-Mountain  region,  which  Leutze 
seems  to  have  studied  broadly  and  minutely.  The 
garb  of  the  hunters  and  wanderers  of  those  deserts, 
too,  under  his  free  and  natural  management,  is  shown 
as  the  most  picturesque  of  costumes.  But  it  would  be 
doing  this  admirable  painter  no  kind  office  to  overlay 
his  picture  with  any  more  of  my  colorless  and  uncer 
tain  words ;  so  I  shall  merely  add  that  it  looked  full 
of  energy,  hope,  progress,  irrepressible  movement  on 
ward,  all  represented  in  a  momentary  pause  of  tri 
umph  ;  and  it  was  most  cheering  to  feel  its  good  au 
gury  at  this  dismal  time,  when  our  country  might  seem 
to  have  arrived  at  such  a  deadly  stand-still. 

It  was  an  absolute  comfort,  indeed,  to  find  Leutze 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         307 

so  quietly  busy  at  this  great  national  work,  which  is 
destined  to  glow  for  centuries  on  the  walls  of  the  Cap 
itol,  if  that  edifice  shall  stand,  or  must  share  its  fate, 
if  treason  shall  succeed  in  subverting  it  with  the  Union 
which  it  represents.  It  was  delightful  to  see  him  so 
calmly  elaborating  his  design,  while  other  men  doubted 
and  feared,  or  hoped  treacherously,  and  whispered  to 
one  another  that  the  nation  would  exist  only  a  little 
longer,  or  that,  if  a  remnant  still  held  together,  its 
centre  and  seat  of  government  would  be  far  northward 
and  westward  of  Washington.  But  the  artist  keeps 
right  on,  firm  of  heart  and  hand,  drawing  his  outlines 
with  an  unwavering  pencil,  beautifying  and  idealizing 
our  rude,  material  life,  and  thus  manifesting  that  we 
have  an  indefeasible  claim  to  a  more  enduring  national 
existence.  In  honest  truth,  what  with  the  hope-inspir 
ing  influence  of  the  design,  and  what  with  Leutze's 
undisturbed  evolvement  of  it,  I  was  exceedingly  en 
couraged,  and  allowed  these  cheerful  auguries  to  weigh 
against  a  sinister  omen  that  was  pointed  out  to  me  in 
another  part  of  the  Capitol.  The  freestone  walls  of 
the  central  edifice  are  pervaded  with  great  cracks,  and 
threaten  to  come  thundering  down,  under  the  immense 
weight  of  the  iron  dome,  —  an  appropriate  catastrophe 
tnough,  if  it  should  occur  on  the  day  when  we  drop 
the  Southern  stars  out  of  our  flag. 

Everybody  seems  to  be  at  Washington,  and  yet  there 
is  a  singular  dearth  of  imperatively  noticeable  people 
there.  I  question  whether  there  are  half  a  dozen  in 
dividuals,  in  all  kinds  of  eminence,  at  whom  a  stran 
ger,  wearied  with  the  contact  of  a  hundred  moder 
ate  celebrities,  would  turn  round  to  snatch  a  second 
glance.  Secretary  Seward,  to  be  sure,  —  a  pale,  large- 
nosed,  elderly  man,  of  moderate  stature,  with  a  de- 


308         CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS. 

elded  originality  of  gait  and  aspect,  and  a  cigar  in  his 
mouth,  — etc.,  etc.1 

Of  course,  there  was  one  other  personage,  in  the 
class  of  statesmen,  whom  I  should  have  been  truly 
mortified  to  leave  Washington  without  seeing;  since 
(temporarily,  at  least,  and  by  force  of  circumstances) 
he  was  the  man  of  men.  But  a  private  grief  had 
built  up  a  barrier  about  him,  impeding  the  customary 
free  intercourse  of  Americans  with  their  chief  mag 
istrate  ;  so  that  I  might  have  come  away  without  a 
glimpse  of  his  very  remarkable  physiognomy,  save  for 
a  semi-official  opportunity  of  which  I  was  glad  to  take 
advantage.  The  fact  is,  we  were  invited  to  annex  our 
selves,  as  supernumeraries,  to  a  deputation  that  was 
about  to  wait  upon  the  President,  from  a  Massachu 
setts  whip-factory,  with  a  present  of  a  splendid  whip. 

Our  immediate  party  consisted  only  of  four  or  five 
(including  Major  Ben  Perley  Poore,  with  his  note 
book  and  pencil),  but  we  were  joined  by  several  other 
persons,  who  seemed  to  have  been  lounging  about  the 
precincts  of  the  White  House,  under  the  spacious 
porch,  or  within  the  hall,  and  who  swarmed  in  with  us 
to  take  the  chances  of  a  presentation.  Nine  o'clock 
had  been  appointed  as  the  time  for  receiving  the  dep 
utation,  and  we  were  punctual  to  the  moment ;  but  not 
so  the  President,  who  sent  us  word  that  he  was  eating 
his  breakfast,  and  would  come  as  soon  as  he  could. 
His  appetite,  we  were  glad  to  think,  must  have  been  a 

1  We  are  again  compelled  to  interfere  with  our  friend's  license  of 
personal  description  and  criticism.  Even  Cabinet  Ministers  (to  whom 
the  next  few  pages  of  the  article  were  devoted)  had  their  private  im 
munities,  which  ought  to  be  conscientiously  observed,  —  unless,  in 
deed,  the  writer  chanced  to  have  some  very  piquant  motives  for  violaU 
ing  them. 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         309 

pretty  fair  one  ;  for  we  waited  about  half  an  hour  in 
one  of  the  antechambers,  and  then  were  ushered  into 
a  reception-room,  in  one  corner  of  which  sat  the  Sec 
retaries  of  War  and  of  the  Treasury,  expecting,  like 
ourselves,  the  termination  of  the  Presidential  break 
fast.  During  this  interval  there  were  several  new 
additions  to  our  group,  one  or  two  of  whom  were  in  a 
working-garb,  so  that  we  formed  a  very  miscellaneous 
collection  of  people,  mostly  unknown  to  each  other, 
and  without  any  common  sponsor,  but  all  with  an 
equal  right  to  look  our  head-servant  in  the  face. 

By  and  by  there  was  a  little  stir  on  the  staircase 
and  in  the  passage-way,  and  in  lounged  a  tall,  loose- 
jointed  figure,  of  an  exaggerated  Yankee  port  and  de 
meanor,  whom  (as  being  about  the  homeliest  man  I 
ever  saw,  yet  by  no  means  repulsive  or  disagreeable) 
it  was  impossible  not  to  recognize  as  Uncle  Abe. 

Unquestionably,  Western  man  though  he  be,  and 
Kentuckian  by  birth,  President  Lincoln  is  the  essen 
tial  representative  of  all  Yankees,  and  the  veritable 
specimen,  physically,  of  what  the  world  seems  deter 
mined  to  regard  as  our  characteristic  qualities.  It  is 
the  strangest  and  yet  the  fittest  thing  in  the  jumble  of 
human  vicissitudes,  that  he,  out  of  so  many  millions, 
unlocked  for,  unselected  by  any  intelligible  process  that 
could  be  based  upon  his  genuine  qualities,  unknown  to 
those  who  chose  him,  and  unsuspected  of  what  endow 
ments  may  adapt  him  for  his  tremendous  responsibil 
ity,  should  have  found  the  way  open  for  him  to  fling 
his  lank  personality  into  the  chair  of  state,  —  where,  I 
presume,  it  was  his  first  impulse  to  throw  his  legs  on 
the  council  -  table,  and  tell  the  Cabinet  Ministers  a 
story.  There  is  no  describing  his  lengthy  awkward- 
nor  the  uncouthness  of  his  movement ;  and  yet 


310         CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

it  seemed  as  if  I  had  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing  him 
daily,  and  had  shaken  hands  with  him  a  thousand  times 
in  some  village  street ;  so  true  was  he  to  the  aspect  of 
the  pattern  American,  though  with  a  certain  extrava 
gance  which,  possibly,  I  exaggerated  still  further  by 
the  delighted  eagerness  with  which  I  took  it  in.  If 
put  to  guess  his  calling  and  livelihood,  I  should  have 
taken  him  for  a  country  schoolmaster  as  soon  as  any 
thing  else.  He  was  dressed  in  a  rusty  black  frock- 
coat  and  pantaloons,  unbrushed,  and  worn  so  faith 
fully  that  the  suit  had  adapted  itself  to  the  curves  and 
angularities  of  his  figure,  and  had  grown  to  be  an 
outer  skin  of  the  man.  He  had  shabby  slippers  on 
his  feet.  His  hair  was  black,  still  unmixed  with  gray, 
stiff,  somewhat  bushy,  and  had  apparently  been  ac 
quainted  with  neither  brush  nor  comb  that  morning, 
after  the  disarrangement  of  the  pillow;  and  as  to  a 
night-cap,  Uncle  Abe  probably  knows  nothing  of  such 
effeminacies.  His  complexion  is  dark  and  sallow,  be 
tokening,  I  fear,  an  insalubrious  atmosphere  around 
the  White  House ;  he  has  thick  black  eyebrows  and 
an  impending  brow ;  his  nose  is  large,  and  the  lines 
about  his  mouth  are  very  strongly  defined. 

The  whole  physiognomy  is  as  coarse  a  one  as  you 
woidd  meet  anywhere  in  the  length  arid  breadth  of 
the  States  ;  but,  withal,  it  is  redeemed,  illuminated, 
softened,  and  brightened  by  a  kindly  though  serious 
look  out  of  his  eyes,  and  an  expression  of  homely  sa 
gacity,  that  seems  weighted  with  rich  results  of  village 
experience.  A  great  deal  of  native  sense  ;  no  bookish 
cultivation,  no  refinement ;  honest  at  heart,  and  thor 
oughly  so,  and  yet,  in  some  sort,  sly,  —  at  least,  en 
dowed  with  a  sort  of  tact  and  wisdom  that  are  akin  to 
craft,  and  would  impel  him,  I  think,  to  take  an  antag- 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         311 

onist  in  flank,  rather  than  to  make  a  bull-run  at  him 
right  in  front.  But,  on  the  whole,  I  like  this  sallow, 
queer,  sagacious  visage,  with  the  homely  human  sym 
pathies  that  warmed  it ;  and,  for  my  small  share  in 
the  matter,  would  as  lief  have  Uncle  Abe  for  a  ruler 
as  any  man  whom  it  would  have  been  practicable  to 
put  in  his  place. 

Immediately  on  his  entrance  the  President  accosted 
our  member  of  Congress,  who  had  us  in  charge,  and, 
with  a  comical  twist  of  his  face,  made  some  jocular 
remark  about  the  length  of  his  breakfast.  He  then 
greeted  us  all  round,  not  waiting  for  an  introduction, 
but  shaking  and  squeezing  everybody's  hand  with  the 
utmost  cordiality,  whether  the  individual's  name  was 
announced  to  him  or  not.  His  manner  towards  us 
was  wholly  without  pretence,  but  yet  had  a  kind  of 
natural  dignity,  quite  sufficient  to  keep  the  forwardest 
of  us  from  clapping  him  on  the  shoulder  and  asking 
him  for  a  story.  A  mutual  acquaintance  being  estab 
lished,  our  leader  took  the  whip  out  of  its  case,  and 
began  to  read  the  address  of  presentation.  The  whip 
was  an  exceedingly  long  one,  its  handle  wrought  in 
ivory  (by  some  artist  in  the  Massachusetts  State 
Prison,  I  believe),  and  ornamented  with  a  medallion 
of  the  President,  and  other  equally  beautiful  devices  ; 
and  along  its  whole  length  there  was  a  succession  of 
golden  bands  and  ferrules.  The  address  was  shorter 
than  the  whip,  but  equally  well  made,  consisting 
chiefly  of  an  explanatory  description  of  these  artistic 
designs,  and  closing  with  a  hint  that  the  gift  was  a 
suggestive  and  emblematic  one,  and  that  the  President 
would  recognize  the  use  to  which  such  an  instrument 
should  be  put. 

This  suggestion  gave  Uncle  Abe  rather  a  delicate 


312          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS. 

task  in  his  reply,  because,  slight  as  the  matter  seemed, 
it  apparently  called  for  some  declaration,  or  intima 
tion,  or  faint  foreshadowing  of  policy  in  reference  to 
the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  the  final  treatment  of  the 
Rebels.  But  the  President's  Yankee  aptness  and  not- 
to-be-caughtness  stood  him  in  good  stead,  and  he 
jerked  or  wiggled  himself  out  of  the  dilemma  with  an 
uncouth  dexterity  that  was  entirely  in  character ;  al 
though,  without  his  gesticulation  of  eye  and  mouth,  — 
and  especially  the  nourish  of  the  whip,  with  which  he 
imagined  himself  touching  up  a  pair  of  fat  horses,  — 
I  doubt  whether  his  words  would  be  worth  recording, 
even  if  I  could  remember  them.  The  gist  of  the  re 
ply  was,  that  he  accepted  the  whip  as  an  emblem  of 
peace,  not  punishment ;  and,  this  great  affair  over,  we 
retired  out  of  the  presence  in  high  good-humor,  only 
regretting  that  we  could  not  have  seen  the  President 
sit  down  and  fold  up  his  legs  (which  is  said  to  be  a 
most  extraordinary  spectacle),  or  have  heard  him  tell 
one  of  those  delectable  stories  for  which  he  is  so  cele 
brated.  A  good  many  of  them  are  afloat  upon  the 
common  talk  of  Washington,  and  are  certainly  the 
aptest,  pithiest,  and  funniest  little  things  imaginable  ; 
though,  to  be  sure,  they  smack  of  the  frontier  freedom, 
and  would  not  always  bear  repetition  in  a  drawing- 
room,  or  on  the  immaculate  page  of  the  Atlantic.1 

1  The  above  passage  relating  to  President  Lincoln  was  one  of  those 
omitted  from  the  article  as  originally  published,  and  the  following 
note  was  appended  to  explain  the  omission,  which  had  been  indicated 
by  a  line  of  points  :  — 

We  are  compelled  to  omit  two  or  three  pages,  in  which  the  author 
describes  the  interview,  and  gives  his  idea  of  the  personal  appearance 
and  deportment  of  the  President.  The  sketch  appears  to  have  been 
written  in  a  benign  spirit,  and  perhaps  conveys  a  not  inaccurate  im 
pression  of  its  august  subject ;  but  it  lacks  reverence,  and  it  pains  us 
to  see  a  gentleman  of  ripe  age,  and  who  has  spent  years  under  the 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS.         313 

Good  Heavens !  what  liberties  have  I  been  taking 
with  one  of  the  potentates  of  the  earth,  and  the  man 
on  whose  conduct  more  important  consequences  de 
pend  than  on  that  of  any  other  historical  personage 
of  the  century !  But  with  whom  is  an  American  citi 
zen  entitled  to  take  a  liberty,  if  not  with  his  own  chief 
magistrate?  However,  lest  the  above  allusions  to 
President  Lincoln's  little  peculiarities  (already  well 
known  to  the  country  and  to  the  world)  should  be 
misinterpreted,  I  deem  it  proper  to  say  a  word  or  two 
in  regard  to  him,  of  unfeigned  respect  and  measurable 
confidence.  He  is  evidently  a  man  of  keen  faculties, 
and,  what  is  still  more  to  the  purpose,  of  powerful 
character.  As  to  his  integrity,  the  people  have  that 
intuition  of  it  which  is  never  deceived.  Before  he 
actually  entered  upon  his  great  office,  and  for  a  con 
siderable  time  afterwards,  there  is  no  reason  to  sup 
pose  that  he  adequately  estimated  the  gigantic  task 
about  to  be  imposed  on  him,  or,  at  least,  had  any  dis 
tinct  idea  how  it  was  to  be  managed  ;  and  I  presume 
there  may  have  been  more  than  one  veteran  politician 
who  proposed  to  himself  to  take  the  power  out  of  Pres 
ident  Lincoln's  hands  into  his  own,  leaving  our  honest 
friend  only  the  public  responsibility  for  the  good  or  ill 
success  of  the  career.  The  extremely  imperfect  devel 
opment  of  his  statesmanly  qualities,  at  that  period, 
may  have  justified  such  designs.  But  the  President 
is  teachable  by  events,  and  has  now  spent  a  year  in 
a  very  arduous  course  of  education  ;  he  has  a  flexible 
mind,  capable  of  much  expansion,  and  convertible  to 
wards  far  loftier  studies  and  activities  than  those  of 
his  early  life  ;  and  if  he  came  to  Washington  a  back- 
corrective  influence  of  foreign  institutions,  falling  into  the  character 
istic  and  most  ominous  fault  of  Young  America. 


314         CHIEFLY  ABOUT  WAR   MATTERS. 

•n 

woods  humorist,  he  has  already  transformed  himself 
into  as  good  a  statesman  (to  speak  moderately)  as  his 
prime-minister. 

Among  other  excursions  to  camps  and  places  of  in 
terest  in  the  neighborhood  of  Washington,  we  went, 
one  day,  to  Alexandria.  It  is  a  little  port  on  the  Po 
tomac,  with  one  or  two  shabby  wharves  and  docks,  re 
sembling  those  of  a  fishing-village  in  New  England, 
and  the  respectable  old  brick  town  rising  gently  be 
hind.  In  peaceful  times  it  no  doubt  bore  an  aspect 
of  decorous  quietude  and  dulness  ;  but  it  was  now 
thronged  with  the  Northern  soldiery,  whose  stir  and 
bustle  contrasted  strikingly  with  the  many  closed 
warehouses,  the  absence  of  citizens  from  their  custom 
ary  haunts,  and  the  lack  of  any  symptom  of  healthy 
activity,  while  army-wagons  trundled  heavily  over  the 
pavements,  and  sentinels  paced  the  sidewalks,  and 
mounted  dragoons  dashed  to  and  fro  on  military  er 
rands.  I  tried  to  imagine  how  very  disagreeable  the 
presence  of  a  Southern  army  would  be  in  a  sober 
town  of  Massachusetts  ;  and  the  thought  considerably 
lessened  my  wonder  at  the  cold  and  shy  regards  that 
are  cast  upon  our  troops,  the  gloom,  the  sullen  de 
meanor,  the  declared  or  scarcely  hidden  sympathy 
with  rebellion,  which  are  so  frequent  here.  It  is  a 
strange  thing  in  human  life,  that  the  greatest  errors 
both  of  men  and  women  often  spring  from  their  sweet 
est  and  most  generous  qualities  ;  and  so,  undoubtedly, 
thousands  of  warm-hearted,  sympathetic,  and  impul 
sive  persons  have  joined  the  Rebels,  not  from  any  real 
zeal  for  the  cause,  but  because,  between  two  conflict 
ing  loyalties,  they  chose  that  which  necessarily  lay 
nearest  the  heart.  There  never  existed  any  other 
government  against  which  treason  was  so  easy,  and 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         315 

could  defend  itself  by  such  plausible  arguments,  as 
against  that  of  the  United  States.  The  anomaly  of 
two  allegiances  (of  which  that  of  the  State  comes 
nearest  home  to  a  man's  feelings,  and  includes  the 
altar  and  the  hearth,  while  the  General  Government 
claims  his  devotion  only  to  an  airy  mode  of  law,  and 
has  no  symbol  but  a  flag)  is  exceedingly  mischievous 
in  this  point  of  view ;  for  it  has  converted  crowds  of 
honest  people  into  traitors,  who  seem  to  themselves 
not  merely  innocent,  but  patriotic,  and  who  die  for  a 
bad  cause  with  as  quiet  a  conscience  as  if  it  were  the 
best.  In  the  vast  extent  of  our  country,  —  too  vast 
by  far  to  be  taken  into  one  small  human  heart,  —  we 
inevitably  limit  to  our  own  State,  or,  at  farthest,  to 
our  own  section,  that  sentiment  of  physical  love  for 
the  soil  which  renders  an  Englishman,  for  example, 
so  intensely  sensitive  to  the  dignity  and  well-being  of 
his  little  island,  that  one  hostile  foot,  treading  any 
where  upon  it,  would  make  a  bruise  on  each  individ 
ual  breast.  If  a  man  loves  his  own  State,  therefore, 
and  is  content  to  be  ruined  with  her,  let  us  shoot  him, 
if  we  can,  but  allow  him  an  honorable  burial  in  the 
soil  he  fights  for.1 

In  Alexandria,  we  visited  the  tavern  in  which  Colo 
nel  Ellsworth  was  killed,  and  saw  the  spot  where  he 
fell,  and  the  stairs  below,  whence  Jackson  fired  the 
fatal  shot,  and  where  he  himself  was  slain  a  moment 
afterwards ;  so  that  the  assassin  and  his  victim  must 
have  met  on  the  threshold  of  the  spirit- world,  and  per 
haps  came  to  a  better  understanding  before  they  had 
taken  many  steps  on  the  other  side.  Ellsworth  was 

1  We  do  not  thoroughly  comprehend  the  author's  drift  in  the  fore 
going  paragraph,  but  are  inclined  to  think  its  tone  reprehensible,  and 
its  tendency  impolitic  in  the  present  stage  of  our  national  difficulties. 


316         CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS, 

too  generous  to  bear  an  immortal  grudge  for  a  d3ed 
like  that,  done  in  hot  blood,  and  by  no  skulking  en 
emy.  The  memorial-hunters  have  completely  cut  away 
the  original  wood-work  around  the  spot,  with  their 
pocket-knives ;  and  the  staircase,  balustrade,  and  floor, 
as  well  as  the  adjacent  doors  and  door-frames,  have 
recently  been  renewed ;  the  walls,  moreover,  are  cov 
ered  with  new  paper-hangings,  the  former  having  been 
torn  off  in  tatters ;  and  thus  it  becomes  something  like 
a  metaphysical  question  whether  the  place  of  the  mur 
der  actually  exists. 

Driving  out  of  Alexandria,  we  stopped  on  the  edge 
of  the  city  to  inspect  an  old  slave-pen,  which  is  one  of 
the  lions  of  the  place,  but  a  very  poor  one ;  and  a  little 
farther  on,  we  came  to  a  brick  church  where  Washing 
ton  used  sometimes  to  attend  service,  —  a  pre-Revolu- 
tionary  edifice,  with  ivy  growing  over  its  walls,  though 
not  very  luxuriantly.  Reaching  the  open  country, 
we  saw  forts  and  camps  on  all  sides ;  some  of  the 
tents  being  placed  immediately  on  the  ground,  while 
others  were  raised  over  a  basement  of  logs,  laid  length 
wise,  like  those  of  a  log-hut,  or  driven  vertically  into 
the  soil  in  a  circle,  —  thus  forming  a  solid  wall,  the 
chinks  closed  up  with  Virginia  mud,  and  above  it  the 
pyramidal  shelter  of  the  tent.  Here  were  in  progress 
all  the  occupations,  and  all  the  idleness,  of  the  sol 
dier  in  the  tented  field  ;  some  were  cooking  the  com 
pany-rations  in  pots  hung  over  fires  in  the  open  air : 
some  played  at  ball,  or  developed  their  muscular  power 
by  gymnastic  exercise ;  some  read  newspapers  ;  some 
smoked  cigars  or  pipes  ;  and  many  were  cleaning  their 
arms  and  accoutrements,  —  the  more  carefully,  per 
haps,  because  their  division  was  to  be  reviewed  by  the 
Commander-in-Chief  that  afternoon  :  others  sat  on  the 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         317 

ground,  while  their  comrades  cut  their  hair,  —  it  be 
ing  a  soldierly  fashion  (and  for  excellent  reasons)  to 
crop  it  within  an  inch  of  the  skull ;  others,  finally,  lay 
asleep  in  breast-high  tents,  with  their  legs  protruding 
into  the  open  air. 

We  paid  a  visit  to  Fort  Ellsworth,  and  from  its 
ramparts  (which  have  been  heaped  up  out  of  the 
muddy  soil  within  the  last  few  months,  and  will  re 
quire  still  a  year  or  two  to  make  them  verdant)  we 
had  a  beautiful  view  of  the  Potomac,  a  truly  majestic 
river,  and  the  surrounding  country.  The  fortifications, 
so  numerous  in  all  this  region,  and  now  so  unsightly 
with  their  bare,  precipitous  sides,  will  remain  as  his 
toric  monuments,  grass-grown  and  picturesque  memo 
rials  of  an  epoch  of  terror  and  suffering:  they  will 
serve  to  make  our  country  dearer  and  more  interesting 
to  us,  and  afford  fit  soil  for  poetry  to  root  itself  in  : 
for  this  is  a  plant  which  thrives  best  in  spots  where 
blood  has  been  spilt  long  ago,  and  grows  in  abundant 
clusters  in  old  ditches,  such  as  the  moat  around  Fort 
Ellsworth  will  be  a  century  hence.  It  may  seem  to 
be  paying  dear  for  what  many  will  reckon  but  a  worth 
less  weed ;  but  the  more  historical  associations  we  can 
link  with  our  localities,  the  richer  will  be  the  daily  life 
that  feeds  upon  the  past,  and  the  more  valuable  the 
things  that  have  been  long  established :  so  that  our 
children  will  be  less  prodigal  than  their  fathers  in  sac 
rificing  good  institutions  to  passionate  impulses  and 
impracticable  theories.  This  herb  of  grace,  let  us 
hope,  may  be  found  in  the  old  footprints  of  the  war. 

Even  in  an  aesthetic  point  of  view,  however,  the 
war  has  done  a  great  deal  of  enduring  mischief,  by 
causing  the  devastation  of  great  tracts  of  woodland 
scenery,  in  which  this  part  of  Virginia  would  appear 


318          CHIEFLY  ABOUT  WAR   MATTERS. 

to  have  been  very  rich.  Around  all  the  encampments, 
and  everywhere  along  the  road,  we  saw  the  bare  sites 
of  what  had  evidently  been  tracts  of  hard-wood  forest, 
indicated  by  the  unsightly  stumps  of  well-grown  trees, 
not  smoothly  felled  by  regular  axe-men,  but  hacked, 
haggled,  and  unevenly  amputated,  as  by  a  sword,  or 
other  miserable  tool,  in  an  unskilful  hand.  Fifty 
years  will  not  repair  this  desolation.  An  army  de 
stroys  everything  before  and  around  it,  even  to  the 
very  grass ;  for  the  sites  of  the  encampments  are  con 
verted  into  barren  esplanades,  like  those  of  the  squares 
in  French  cities,  where  not  a  blade  of  grass  is  allowed 
to  grow.  As  to  the  other  symptoms  of  devastation 
and  obstruction,  such  as  deserted  houses,  unfenced 
fields,  and  a  general  aspect  of  nakedness  and  ruin,  I 
know  not  how  much  may  be  due  to  a  normal  lack  of 
neatness  in  the  rural  life  of  Virginia,  which  puts  a 
squalid  face  even  upon  a  prosperous  state  of  things ; 
but  undoubtedly  the  war  must  have  spoilt  what  was 
good,  and  made  the  bad  a  great  deal  worse.  The  car 
casses  of  horses  were  scattered  along  the  wayside. 

One  very  pregnant  token  of  a  social  system  thor 
oughly  disturbed  was  presented  by  a  party  of  con 
trabands,  escaping  out  of  the  mysterious  depths  of  Se- 
cessia ;  and  its  strangeness  consisted  in  the  leisurely 
delay  with  which  they  trudged  forward,  as  dreading  no 
pursuer,  and  encountering  nobody  to  turn  them  back. 
They  were  unlike  the  specimens  of  their  race  whom 
we  are  accustomed  to  see  at  the  North,  and,  in  my 
judgment,  were  far  more  agreeable.  So  rudely  were 
they  attired,  —  as  if  their  garb  had  grown  upon  them 
spontaneously,  —  so  picturesquely  natural  in  manners, 
and  wearing  such  a  crust  of  primeval  simplicity 
(which  is  quite  polished  away  from  the  northern  black 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         319 

man),  that  they  seemed  a  kind  of  creature  by  them 
selves,  not  altogether  human,  but  perhaps  quite  as 
good,  and  akin  to  the  fauns  and  rustic  deities  of  olden 
times.  I  wonder  whether  I  shall  excite  anybody's 
wrath  by  saying  this.  It  is  no  great  matter.  At  all 
events,  I  felt  most  kindly  towards  these  poor  fugitives, 
but  knew  not  precisely  what  to  wish  in  their  behalf, 
nor  in  the  least  how  to  help  them.  For  the  sake  of 
the  manhood  which  is  latent  in  them,  I  would  not  have 
turned  them  back ;  but  I  should  have  felt  almost  as  re 
luctant,  on  their  own  account,  to  hasten  them  forward 
to  the  stranger's  land ;  and  I  think  my  prevalent  idea 
was,  that,  whoever  may  be  benefited  by  the  results  of 
this  war,  it  will  not  be  the  present  generation  of  ne 
groes,  the  childhood  of  whose  race  is  now  gone  for 
ever,  and  who  must  henceforth  fight  a  hard  battle  with 
the  world,  on  very  unequal  terms.  On  behalf  of  my 
own  race,  I  am  glad  and  can  only  hope  that  an  inscru 
table  Providence  means  good  to  both  parties. 

There  is  an  historical  circumstance,  known  to  few, 
that  connects  the  children  of  the  Puritans  with  these 
Africans  of  Virginia  in  a  very  singular  way.  They  are 
our  brethren,  as  being  lineal  descendants  from  the 
Mayflower,  the  fated  womb  of  which,  in  her  first  voy 
age,  sent  forth  a  brood  of  Pilgrims  on  Plymouth  Rock, 
and,  in  a  subsequent  one,  spawned  slaves  upon  the 
Southern  soil,  —  a  monstrous  birth,  but  with  which 
we  have  an  instinctive  sense  of  kindred,  and  so  are 
stirred  by  an  irresistible  impulse  to  attempt  their  res 
cue,  even  at  the  cost  of  blood  and  ruin.  The  character 
of  our  sacred  ship,  I  fear,  may  suffer  a  little  by  this 
revelation ;  but  we  must  let  her  white  progeny  offset 
her  dark  one,  —  and  two  such  portents  never  sprang 
from  an  identical  source  before. 


320         CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

While  we  drove  onward,  a  young  officer  on  horse 
back  looked  earnestly  into  the  carriage,  and  recognized 
some  faces  that  he  had  seen  before  ;  so  he  rode  along 
by  our  side,  and  we  pestered  him  with  queries  and  ob 
servations,  to  which  he  responded  more  civilly  than 
they  deserved.  He  was  on  General  McClellan's  staff, 
and  a  gallant  cavalier,  high-booted,  with  a  revolver  in 
his  belt,  and  mounted  on  a  noble  horse,  which  trotted 
hard  and  high  without  disturbing  the  rider  in  his  ac 
customed  seat.  His  face  had  a  healthy  hue  of  expos 
ure  and  an  expression  of  careless  hardihood  ;  and,  as 
I  looked  at  him,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  war  had 
brought  good  fortune  to  the  youth  of  this  epoch,  if 
to  none  beside ;  since,  they  now  make  it  their  daily 
business  to  ride  a  horse  and  handle  a  sword,  instead 
of  lounging  listlessly  through  the  duties,  occupations, 
pleasures  —  all  tedious  alike  —  to  which  the  artificial 
state  of  society  limits  a  peaceful  generation.  The  at 
mosphere  of  the  camp  and  the  smoke  of  the  battle 
field  are  morally  invigorating  ;  the  hardy  virtues 
flourish  in  them,  the  nonsense  dies  like  a  wilted  weed. 
The  enervating  effects  of  centuries  of  civilization  van 
ish  at  once,  and  leave  these  young  men  to  enjoy  a  life 
of  hardship,  and  the  exhilarating  sense  of  danger,  — 
to  kill  men  blamelessly,  or  to  be  killed  gloriously,  — 
and  to  be  happy  in  following  out  their  native  instincts 
of  destruction,  precisely  in  the  spirit  of  Homer's  he 
roes,  only  with  some  considerable  change  of  mode. 
One  touch  of  Nature  makes  not  only  the  whole  world, 
but  all  time,  akin.  Set  men  face  to  face,  with  weap 
ons  in  their  hands,  and  they  are  as  ready  to  slaughter 
one  another  now,  after  playing  at  peace  and  good-will 
for  so  many  years,  as  in  the  rudest  ages,  that  never 
heard  of  peace-societies,  and  thought  no  wine  so  deli' 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         321 

cious  as  what  they  quaffed  from  an  enemy's  skull. 
Indeed,  if  the  report  of  a  Congressional  committee 
may  be  trusted,  that  old-fashioned  kind  of  goblet  has 
again  come  into  use,  at  the  expense  of  our  Northern 
head-pieces,  —  a  costly  thinking-cup  to  him  that  fur 
nishes  it !  Heaven  forgive  me  for  seeming  to  jest 
upon  such  a  subject !  —  only,  it  is  so  odd,  when  we 
measure  our  advances  from  barbarism,  and  find  our 
selves  just  here !  l 

We  now  approached  General  McClellan's  head 
quarters,  which,  at  that  time,  were  established  at 
Fairfield  Seminary.  The  edifice  was  situated  on  a 
gentle  elevation,  amid  very  agreeable  scenery,  and,  at 
a  distance,  looked  like  a  gentleman's  seat.  Prepara 
tions  were  going  forward  for  reviewing  a  division  of 
ten  or  twelve  thousand  men,  the  various  regiments 
composing  which  had  begun  to  array  themselves  on  an 
extensive  plain,  where,  methought,  there  was  a  more 
convenient  place  for  a  battle  than  is  usually  found 
in  this  broken  and  difficult  country.  Two  thousand 
cavalry  made  a  portion  of  the  troops  to  be  reviewed. 
By  and  by  we  saw  a  pretty  numerous  troop  of  mounted 
officers,  who  were  congregated  on  a  distant  part  of  the 
plain,  and  whom  we  finally  ascertained  to  be  the  Com 
mander -in -Chief's  staff,  with  McClellan  himself  at 
their  head.  Our  party  managed  to  establish  itself  in 
a  position  conveniently  close  to  the  General,  to  whom, 
moreover,  we  had  the  honor  of  an  introduction ;  and 
he  bowed,  on  his  horseback,  with  a  good  deal  of  dig 
nity  and  martial  courtesy,  but  no  airs  nor  fuss  nor 

1  We  hardly  expected  this  outbreak  in  favor  of  war  from  the 
Peaceable  Man ;  but  the  justice  of  our  cause  makes  us  all  soldiers  at 
heart,  however  quiet  in  our  outward  life.  We  have  heard  of  twenty 
Quakers  in  a  single  company  of  a  Pennsylvania  regiment. 

VOL..    XII.  21 


322         CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR    MATTERS. 

pretension  beyond  what  his  character  and  rank  inevi 
tably  gave  him. 

Now,  at  that  juncture,  and,  in  fact,  up  to  the  pres 
ent  moment,  there  was,  and  is,  a  most  fierce  and  bitter 
outcry,  and  detraction  loud  and  low,  against  General 
McClellan,  accusing  Mm  of  sloth,  imbecility,  coward 
ice,  treasonable  purposes,  and,  in  short,  utterly  deny 
ing  his  ability  as  a  soldier,  and  questioning  his  integ 
rity  as  a  man.  Nor  was  this  to  be  wondered  at ;  for 
when  before,  in  all  history,  do  we  find  a  general  in 
command  of  half  a  million  of  men,  and  in  presence  of 
an  enemy  inferior  in  numbers  and  no  better  disciplined 
than  his  own  troops,  leaving  it  still  debatable,  after 
the  better  part  of  a  year,  whether  he  is  a  soldier  or 
no  ?  The  question  would  seem  to  answer  itself  in  the 
very  asking.  Nevertheless,  being  most  profoundly 
ignorant  of  the  art  of  war,  like  the  majority  of  the 
General's  critics,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  having  some 
considerable  impressibility  by  men's  characters,  I  was 
glad  of  the  opportunity  to  look  him  in  the  face,  and 
to  feel  whatever  influence  might  reach  me  from  his 
sphere.  So  I  stared  at  him,  as  the  phrase  goes,  with 
all  the  eyes  I  had ;  and  the  reader  shall  have  the  ben 
efit  of  what  I  saw,  —  to  which  he  is  the  more  wel 
come,  because,  in  writing  this  article,  I  feel  disposed 
to  be  singularly  frank,  and  can  scarcely  restrain  my 
self  from  telling  truths  the  utterance  of  which  I  should 
get  slender  thanks  for. 

The  General  was  dressed  in  a  simple,  dark-blue  uni 
form,  without  epaulets,  booted  to  the  knee,  and  with  a 
cloth  cap  upon  his  head  ;  and,  at  first  sight,  you  might 
have  taken  him  for  a  corporal  of  dragoons,  of  particu 
larly  neat  and  soldier-like  aspect,  and  in  the  prime  of 
his  age  and  strength.  He  is  only  of  middling  stature, 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS.         323 

but  his  build  is  very  compact  and  sturdy,  with  broad 
shoulders  and  a  look  of  great  physical  vigor,  which,  in 
fact,  he  is  said  to  possess,  —  he  and  Beauregard  having 
been  rivals  in  that  particular,  and  both  distinguished 
above  other  men.  His  complexion  is  dark  and  san 
guine,  with  dark  hair.  He  has  a  strong,  bold,  sol 
dierly  face,  full  of  decision  ;  a  Roman  nose,  by  no 
means  a  thin  prominence,  but  very  thick  and  firm ; 
and  if  he  follows  it  (which  I  should  think  likely),  it 
may  be  pretty  confidently  trusted  to  guide  him  aright. 
His  profile  would  make  a  more  effective  likeness  than 
the  full  face,  which,  however,  is  much  better  in  the 
real  man  than  in  any  photograph  that  I  have  seen. 
His  forehead  is  not  remarkably  large,  but  comes  for 
ward  at  the  eyebrows  ;  it  is  not  the  brow  nor  counte 
nance  of  a  prominently  intellectual  man  (not  a  natu 
ral  student,  I  mean,  or  abstract  thinker),  but  of  one 
whose  office  it  is  to  handle  things  practically  and  to 
bring  about  tangible  results.  His  face  looked  capa 
ble  of  being  very  stern,  but  wore,  in  its  repose,  when 
I  saw  it,  an  aspect  pleasant  and  dignified ;  it  is  not, 
in  its  character,  an  American  face,  nor  an  English 
one.  The  man  on  whom  he  fixes  his  eye  is  conscious 
of  him.  In  his  natural  disposition,  he  seems  calm 
and  self  -  possessed,  sustaining  his  great  responsibili 
ties  cheerfully,  without  shrinking,  or  weariness,  or 
spasmodic  effort,  or  damage  to  his  health,  but  all 
with  quiet,  deep  -  drawn  breaths  ;  just  as  his  broad 
shoulders  would  bear  up  a  heavy  burden  without  ach 
ing  beneath  it. 

After  we  had  had  sufficient  time  to  peruse  the  man 
(so  far  as  it  could  be  done  with  one  pair  of  very  atten 
tive  eyes),  the  General  rode  off,  followed  by  his  caval 
cade,  and  was  lost  to  sight  among  the  troops.  They 


324         CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

received  him  with  loud  shouts,  by  the  eager  uproar  of 
which  —  now  near,  now  in  the  centre,  now  on  the  out 
skirts  of  the  division,  and  now  sweeping  back  towards 
us  in  a  great  volume  of  sound  —  we  could  trace  his 
progress  through  the  ranks.  If  he  is  a  coward,  or  a 
traitor,  or  a  humbug,  or  anything  less  than  a  brave, 
true,  and  able  man,  that  mass  of  intelligent  soldiers, 
whose  lives  and  honor  he  had  in  charge,  were  utterly 
deceived,  and  so  was  this  present  writer ;  for  they  be 
lieved  in  him,  and  so  did  I ;  and  had  I  stood  in  the 
ranks,  I  should  have  shouted  with  the  lustiest  of  them. 
Of  course  I  may  be  mistaken ;  my  opinion  on  such  a 
point  is  worth  nothing,  although  my  impression  may 
be  worth  a  little  more ;  neither  do  I  consider  the  Gen 
eral's  antecedents  as  bearing  very  decided  testimony 
to  his  practical  soldiership.  A  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  science  of  war  seems  to  be  conceded  to  him  ; 
he  is  allowed  to  be  a  good  military  critic ;  but  all  this 
is  possible  without  his  possessing  any  positive  qualities 
of  a  great  general,  just  as  a  literary  critic  may  show 
the  profoundest  acquaintance  with  the  principles  of 
epic  poetry  without  being  able  to  produce  a  single 
stanza  of  an  epic  poem.  Nevertheless,  I  shall  not  give 
up  my  faith  in  General  McClellan's  soldiership  until 
he  is  defeated,  nor  in  his  courage  and  integrity  even 
then. 

Another  of  our  excursions  was  to  Harper's  Ferry, 
—  the  Directors  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad 
having  kindly  invited  us  to  accompany  them  on  the 
first  trip  over  the  newly  laid  track,  after  its  breaking 
up  by  the  Rebels.  It  began  to  rain,  in  the  early  morn 
ing,  pretty  soon  after  we  left  Washington,  and  contin 
ued  to  pour  a  cataract  throughout  the  day  ;  so  that  the 
aspect  of  the  country  was  dreary,  where  it  would  other- 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT  WAR   MATTERS.         825 

wise  have  been  delightful,  as  we  entered  among  the  hill- 
scenery  that  is  formed  by  the  subsiding  swells  of  the  Al- 
leghanies.  The  latter  part  of  our  journey  lay  along  the 
shore  of  the  Potomac,  in  its  upper  course,  where  the 
margin  of  that  noble  river  is  bordered  by  gray,  over 
hanging  crags,  beneath  which  —  and  sometimes  right 
through  them  —  the  railroad  takes  its  way.  In  one 
place  the  Rebels  had  attempted  to  arrest  a  train  by  pre 
cipitating  an  immense  mass  of  rock  down  upon  the 
track,  by  the  side  of  which  it  still  lay,  deeply  imbed 
ded  in  the  ground,  and  looking  as  if  it  might  have  lain 
there  since  the  Deluge.  The  scenery  grew  even  more 
picturesque  as  we  proceeded,  the  bluffs  becoming  very 
bold  in  their  descent  upon  the  river,  which,  at  Har 
per's  Ferry,  presents  as  striking  a  vista  among  the 
hills  as  a  painter  could  desire  to  see.  But  a  beautiful 
landscape  is  a  luxury,  and  luxuries  are  thrown  away 
amid  discomfort ;  and  when  we  alighted  into  the  tena 
cious  mud  and  almost  fathomless  puddle,  on  the  hither 
side  of  the  Ferry  (the  ultimate  point  to  which  the  cars 
proceeded,  since  the  railroad  bridge  had  been  destroyed 
by  the  Rebels),  I  cannot  remember  that  any  very  rap 
turous  emotions  were  awakened  by  the  scenery. 

We  paddled  and  floundered  over  the  ruins  of  the 
track,  and,  scrambling  down  an  embankment,  crossed 
the  Potomac  by  a  pontoon-bridge,  a  thousand  feet  in 
length,  over  the  narrow  line  of  which  —  level  with 
the  river,  and  rising  and  subsiding  with  it  —  General 
Banks  had  recently  led  his  whole  army,  with  its  pon 
derous  artillery  and  heavily  lajlen  wagons.  Yet  our 
own  tread  made  it  vibrate.  The  broken  bridge  of  the 
railroad  was  a  little  below  us,  and  at  the  base  of  one 
of  its  massive  piers,  in  the  rocky  bed  of  the  river,  lay 
a  locomotive,  which  the  Rebels  had  precipitated  there. 


326          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS. 

As  we  passed  over,  we  looked  towards  the  Virginia 
shore,  and  beheld  the  little  town  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
gathered  about  the  base  of  a  round  hill  and  climbing 
up  its  steep  acclivity ;  so  that  it  somewhat  resembled 
the  Etruscan  cities  which  I  have  seen  among  the  Apen 
nines,  rushing,  as  it  were,  down  an  apparently  break 
neck  height.  About  midway  of  the  ascent  stood  a 
shabby  brick  church,  towards  which  a  difficult  path 
went  scrambling  up  the  precipice,  indicating,  one  would 
say,  a  very  fervent  aspiration  on  the  part  of  the  wor 
shippers,  unless  there  was  some  easier  mode  of  access 
in  another  direction.  Immediately  on  the  shore  of 
the  Potomac,  and  extending  back  towards  the  town, 
lay  the  dismal  ruins  of  the  United  States  arsenal  and 
armory,  consisting  of  piles  of  broken  bricks  and  a 
waste  of  shapeless  demolition,  amid  which  we  saw  gun- 
barrels  in  heaps  of  hundreds  together.  They  were  the 
relics  of  the  conflagration,  bent  with  the  heat  of  the 
fire  and  rusted  with  the  wintry  rain  to  which  they  had 
since  been  exposed.  The  brightest  sunshine  could  not 
have  made  the  scene  cheerful,  nor  have  taken  away 
the  gloom  from  the  dilapidated  town ;  for,  besides  the 
natural  shabbiness,  and  decayed,  unthrifty  look  of  a 
Virginian  village,  it  has  an  inexpressible  forlornness 
resulting  from  the  devastations  of  war  and  its  occupa 
tion  by  both  armies  alternately.  Yet  there  would  be 
a  less  striking  contrast  between  Southern  and  New- 
England  villages,  if  the  former  were  as  much  in  the 
habit  of  using  white  paint  as  we  are.  It  is  prodig 
iously  efficacious  in  putting  a  bright  face  upon  a  bad 
matter. 

There  was  one  small  shop,  which  appeared  to  have 
nothing  for  sale.  A  single  man  and  one  or  two  boys 
were  all  the  inhabitants  in  view,  except  the  Yankee 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         327 

sentinels  and  soldiers,  belonging  to  Massachusetts  reg 
iments,  who  were  scattered  about  pretty  numerously. 
A  guard-house  stood  on  the  slope  of  the  hill ;  and  in 
the  level  street  at  its  base  were  the  offices  of  the  Pro 
vost-Marshal  and  other  military  authorities,  to  whom 
we  forthwith  reported  ourselves.  The  Provost-Mar 
shal  kindly  sent  a  corporal  to  guide  us  to  the  little 
building  which  John  Brown  seized  upon  as  his  fortress, 
and  which,  after  it  was  stormed  by  the  United  States 
marines,  became  his  temporary  prison.  It  is  an  old 
engine-house,  rusty  and  shabby,  like  every  other  work 
of  man's  hands  in  this  God-forsaken  town,  and  stands 
fronting  upon  the  river,  only  a  short  distance  from 
the  bank,  nearly  at  the  point  where  the  pontoon-bridge 
touches  the  Virginia  shore.  In  its  front  wall,  on  each 
side  of  the  door,  are  two  or  three  ragged  loop-holes, 
which  John  Brown  perforated  for  his  defence,  knock 
ing  out  merely  a  brick  or  two,  so  as  to  give  himself 
and  his  garrison  a  sight  over  their  rifles.  Through 
these  orifices  the  sturdy  old  man  dealt  a  good  deal  of 
deadly  mischief  among  his  assailants,  until  they  broke 
down  the  door  by  thrusting  against  it  with  a  ladder, 
and  tumbled  headlong  in  upon  him.  I  shall  not  pre 
tend  to  be  an  admirer  of  old  John  Brown,  any  farther 
than  sympathy  with  Whittier's  excellent  ballad  about 
him  may  go ;  nor  did  I  expect  ever  to  shrink  so  unut 
terably  from  any  apophthegm  of  a  sage,  whose  happy 
lips  have  uttered  a  hundred  golden  sentences,  as  from 
that  saying  (perhaps  falsely  attributed  to  so  honored 
a  source),  that  the  death  of  this  blood-stained  fanatic 
has  "  made  the  Gallows  as  venerable  as  the  Cross ! " 
Nobody  was  ever  more  justly  hanged.  lie  won  his 
martyrdom  fairly,  and  took  it  firmly.  lie  himself,  I 
am  persuaded  (such  was  his  natural  integrity),  would 


328          CHIEFLY  ABOUT  WAR  MATTERS. 

have  acknowledged  that  Virginia  had  a  right  to  take 
the  life  which  he  had  staked  and  lost;  although  it 
would  have  been  better  for  her,  in  the  hour  that  is  fast 
coming,  if  she  could  generously  have  forgotten  the  crim 
inality  of  his  attempt  in  its  enormous  folly.  On  the 
other  hand,  any  common-sensible  man,  looking  at  the 
matter  unsentimentally,  must  have  felt  a  certain  intel 
lectual  satisfaction  in  seeing  him  hanged,  if  it  were 
only  in  requital  of  his  preposterous  miscalculation  of 
possibilities.1 

But,  coolly  as  I  seem  to  say  these  things,  my  Yan 
kee  heart  stirred  triumphantly  when  I  saw  the  use  to 
which  John  Brown's  fortress  and  prison-house  has  now 
been  put.  What  right  have  I  to  complain  of  any 
other  man's  foolish  impulses,  when  I  cannot  possibly 
control  my  own  ?  The  engine-house  is  now  a  place  of 
confinement  for  Rebel  prisoners. 

A  Massachusetts  soldier  stood  on  guard,  but  readily 
permitted  our  whole  party  to  enter.  It  was  a  wretched 
place.  A  room  of  perhaps  twenty-five  feet  square  oc 
cupied  the  whole  interior  of  the  building,  having  an 
iron  stove  in  its  centre,  whence  a  rusty  funnel  as 
cended  towards  a  hole  in  the  roof,  which  served  the 
purposes  of  ventilation,  as  well  as  for  the  exit  of  smoke. 
We  found  ourselves  right  in  the  midst  of  the  Rebels, 
some  of  whom  lay  on  heaps  of  straw,  asleep,  or,  at  all 
events,  giving  no  sign  of  consciousness ;  others  sat  in 
the  corners  of  the  room,  huddled  close  together,  and 
staring  with  a  lazy  kind  of  interest  at  the  visitors  ;  two 
were  astride  of  some  planks,  playing  with  the  dirtiest 
pack  of  cards  that  I  ever  happened  to  see.  There  was 
only  one  figure  in  the  least  military  among  all  these 

1  Can  it  be  a  son  of  old  Massachusetts  who  utters  this  abominable 
sentiment  ?  For  shame. 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         329 

twenty  prisoners  of  war,  — •  a  man  with  a  dark,  intelli 
gent,  moustached  face,  wearing  a  shabby  cotton  uni 
form,  which  he  had  contrived  to  arrange  with  a  degree 
of  soldierly  smartness,  though  it  had  evidently  borne 
the  brunt  of  a  very  filthy  campaign.  He  stood  erect, 
and  talked  freely  with  those  who  addressed  him,  telling 
them  his  place  of  residence,  the  number  of  his  regi 
ment,  the  circumstances  of  his  capture,  and  such  other 
particulars  as  their  Northern  inquisitiveuess  prompted 
them  to  ask.  I  liked  the  manliness  of  his  deport 
ment  ;  he  was  neither  ashamed,  nor  afraid,  nor  in  the 
slightest  degree  sullen,  peppery,  or  contumacious,  but 
bore  himself  as  if  whatever  animosity  he  had  felt 
towards  his  enemies  was  left  upon  the  battle-field,  and 
would  not  be  resumed  till  he  had  again  a  weapon  in 
his  hand. 

Neither  could  I  detect  a  trace  of  hostile  feeling  in 
the  countenance,  words,  or  manner  of  any  prisoner 
there.  Almost  to  a  man,  they  were  simple,  bumpkin- 
like  fellows,  dressed  in  homespun  clothes,  with  faces 
singularly  vacant  of  meaning,  but  sufficiently  good- 
humored  :  a  breed  of  men,  in  short,  such  as  I  did  not 
suppose  to  exist  in  this  country,  although  I  have  seen 
their  like  in  some  other  parts  of  the  world.  They 
were  peasants,  and  of  a  very  low  order:  a  class  of 
people  with  whom  our  Northern  rural  population  has 
not  a  single  trait  in  common.  They  were  exceedingly 
respectful,  —  more  so  than  a  rustic  New  -  Englander 
ever  dreams  of  being  towards  anybody,  except  perhaps 
his  minister ;  and  had  they  worn  any  hats,  they  would 
probably  have  been  self-constrained  to  take  them  off, 
under  the  unusual  circumstance  of  being  permitted  to 
hold  conversation  with  well-dressed  persons.  It  is  my 
belief  that  not  a  single  bumpk'n  of  them  all  (the  mous- 


330          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

tached  soldier  always  excepted)  had  the  remotest  com 
prehension  of  what  they  had  been  fighting  for,  or  how 
they  had  deserved  to  be  shut  up  in  that  dreary  hole  ; 
nor,  possibly,  did  they  care  to  inquire  into  this  latter 
mystery,  but  took  it  as  a  godsend  to  be  suffered  to 
lie  here  in  a  heap  of  unwashed  human  bodies,  well 
warmed  and  well  foddered  to-day,  and  without  the 
necessity  of  bothering  themselves  about  the  possible 
hunger  and  cold  of  to-morrow.  Their  dark  prison-life 
may  have  seemed  to  them  the  sunshine  of  all  their 
lifetime. 

There  was  one  poor  wretch,  a  wild-beast  of  a  man, 
at  whom  I  gazed  with  greater  interest  than  at  his  fel 
lows  ;  although  I  know  not  that  each  one  of  them,  in 
their  semi-barbarous  moral  state,  might  not  have  been 
capable  of  the  same  savage  impulse  that  had  made 
this  particular  individual  a  horror  to  all  beholders. 
At  the  close  of  some  battle  or  skirmish,  a  wounded 
Union  soldier  had  crept  on  hands  and  knees  to  his 
feet,  and  besought  his  assistance,  —  not  dreaming  that 
any  creature  in  human  shape,  in  the  Christian  land 
where  they  had  so  recently  been  brethren,  could  re 
fuse  it.  But  this  man  (this  fiend,  if  you  prefer  to  call 
him  so,  though  I  would  not  advise  it)  flung  a  bitter 
curse  at  the  poor  Northerner,  and  absolutely  trampled 
the  soul  out  of  his  body,  as  he  lay  writhing  beneath 
his  feet.  The  fellow's  face  was  horribly  ugly ;  but  I 
am  not  quite  sure  that  I  should  have  noticed  it,  if  I 
had  not  known  his  story.  He  spoke  not  a  word,  and 
met  nobody's  eye,  but  kept  staring  upward  into  the 
smoky  vacancy  towards  the  ceiling,  where,  it  might 
be,  he  beheld  a  continual  portraiture  of  his  victim's 
horror-stricken  agonies.  I  rather  fancy,  however,  that 
his  moral  sense  was  yet  too  torpid  to  trouble  him  with 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         331 

such  remorseful  visions,  and  that,  for  his  own  part,  he 
might  have  had  very  agreeable  reminiscences  of  the 
soldier's  death,  if  other  eyes  had  not  been  bent  re 
proachfully  upon  him  and  warned  him  that  something 
was  amiss.  It  was  this  reproach  in  other  men's  eyes 
that  made  him  look  aside.  He  was  a  wild-beast,  as  I 
began  with  saying,  — an  unsophisticated  wild-beast,  — 
while  the  rest  of  us  are  partially  tamed,  though  still 
the  scent  of  blood  excites  some  of  the  savage  instincts 
of  our  nature.  What  this  wretch  needed,  in  order  to 
make  him  capable  of  the  degree  of  mercy  and  benevo 
lence  that  exists  in  us,  was  simply  such  a  measure  of 
moral  and  intellectual  development  as  we  have  re 
ceived  ;  and,  in  my  mind,  the  present  war  is  so  well 
justified  by  no  other  consideration  as  by  the  probabil 
ity  that  it  will  free  this  class  of  Southern  whites  from 
a  thraldom  in  which  they  scarcely  begin  to  be  respon 
sible  beings.  So  far  as  the  education  of  the  heart  is 
concerned,  the  negroes  have  apparently  the  advantage 
of  them  ;  and  as  to  other  schooling,  it  is  practically 
unattainable  by  black  or  white. 

Looking  round  at  these  poor  prisoners,  therefore,  it 
struck  me  as  an  immense  absurdity  that  they  should 
fancy  us  their  enemies  ;  since,  whether  we  intend  it  so 
or  no,  they  have  a  far  greater  stake  on  our  success  than 
we  can  possibly  have.  For  ourselves,  the  balance  of 
advantages  between  defeat  and  triumph  may  admit  of 
question.  For  them,  all  truly  valuable  things  are  de 
pendent  on  our  complete  success;  for  thence  would 
come  the  regeneration  of  a  people,  —  the  removal  of 
a  foul  scurf  that  has  overgrown  their  life,  and  keeps 
them  in  a  state  of  disease  and  decrepitude,  one  of  the 
chief  symptoms  of  which  is,  that,  the  more  they  suffer 
and  are  debased,  the  more  they  imagine  themselves 


332         CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

strong  and  beautiful.  No  human  effort,  on  a  grand 
scale,  has  ever  yet  resulted  according  to  the  purpose  of 
its  projectors.  The  advantages  are  always  incidental. 
Man's  accidents  are  God's  purposes.  We  miss  the 
good  we  sought,  and  do  the  good  we  little  cared  for.1 

Our  Government  evidently  knows  when  and  where 
to  lay  its  finger  upon  its  most  available  citizens ;  for, 
quite  unexpectedly,  we  were  joined  with  some  other 
gentlemen,  scarcely  less  competent  than  ourselves,  in  a 
commission  to  proceed  to  Fortress  Monroe  and  exam 
ine  into  things  in  general.  Of  course,  official  propri 
ety  compels  us  to  be  extremely  guarded  in  our  descrip 
tion  of  the  interesting  objects  which  this  expedition 
opened  to  our  view.  There  can  be  no  harm,  however, 
in  stating  that  we  were  received  by  the  commander  of 
the  fortress  with  a  kind  of  acid  good-nature,  or  mild 
cynicism,  that  indicated  him  to  be  a  humorist,  charac 
terized  by  certain  rather  pungent  peculiarities,  yet  of 
no  unamiable  cast.  He  is  a  small,  thin  old  gentleman, 
set  off  by  a  large  pair  of  brilliant  epaulets,  —  the  only 
pair,  so  far  as  my  observation  went,  that  adorn  the 
shoulders  of  any  officer  in  the  Union  army.  Either 
for  our  inspection,  or  because  the  matter  had  already 
been  arranged,  he  drew  out  a  regiment  of  Zouaves 
that  formed  the  principal  part  of  his  garrison,  and  ap 
peared  at  their  head,  sitting  on  horseback  with  rigid 
perpendicularity,  and  affording  us  a  vivid  idea  of  the 
disciplinarian  of  Baron  Steuben's  school. 

There  can  be  no  question  of  the  General's  military 
qualities ;  he  must  have  been  especially  useful  in  con- 

1  The  author  seems  to  imagine  that  he  has  compressed  a  great  deal 
of  meaning  into  these  little,  hard,  dry  pellets  of  aphoristic  wisdom. 
We  disagree  with  him.  The  counsels  of  wise  and  good  men  are  often 
coincident  with  the  purposes  of  Providence ;  and  the  present  war 
promises  to  illustrate  our  remark. 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         333 

verting  raw  recruits  into  trained  and  efficient  soldiers. 
But  valor  and  martial  skill  are  of  so  evanescent  a 
character  (hardly  less  fleeting  than  a  woman's  beauty), 
that  Government  has  perhaps  taken  the  safer  course  in 
assigning  to  this  gallant  officer,  though  distinguished 
in  former  wars,  no  more  active  duty  than  the  guardian 
ship  of  an  apparently  impregnable  fortress.  The  ideas 
of  military  men  solidify  and  fossilize  so  fast,  while 
military  science  makes  such  rapid  advances,  that  even 
here  there  might  be  a  difficulty.  An  active,  diversi 
fied,  and  therefore  a  youthful,  ingenuity  is  required 
by  the  quick  exigencies  of  this  singular  war.  For 
tress  Monroe,  for  example,  in  spite  of  the  massive  so 
lidity  of  its  ramparts,  its  broad  and  deep  moat,  and 
all  the  contrivances  of  defence  that  were  known  at  the 
not  very  remote  epoch  of  its  construction,  is  now  pro 
nounced  absolutely  incapable  of  resisting  the  novel 
modes  of  assault  which  may  be  brought  to  bear  upon 
it.  It  can  only  be  the  flexible  talent  of  a  young  man 
that  will  evolve  a  new  efficiency  out  of  its  obsolete 
strength. 

It  is  a  pity  that  old  men  grow  unfit  for  war,  not 
only  by  their  incapacity  for  new  ideas,  but  by  the 
peaceful  and  unadventurous  tendencies  that  gradually 
possess  themselves  of  the  once  turbulent  disposition, 
which  used  to  snuff  the  battle-smoke  as  its  congenial 
atmosphere.  It  is  a  pity ;  because  it  would  be  such 
an  economy  of  human  existence,  if  time-stricken  peo 
ple  (whose  value  I  have  the  better  right  to  estimate, 
as  reckoning  myself  one  of  them)  could  snatch  from 
their  juniors  the  exclusive  privilege  of  carrying  on  the 
war.  In  case  of  death  upon  the  battle-field,  how  un 
equal  would  be  the  comparative  sacrifice  !  On  one 
part,  a  few  unen joy  able  years,  the  little  remnant  of  a 


334          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

life  grown  torpid  ;  on  the  other,  the  many  fervent 
summers  olf  manhood  in  its  spring  and  prime,  with 
all  that  they  include  of  possible  benefit  to  mankind. 
Then,  too,  a  bullet  offers  such  a  brief  and  easy  way, 
such  a  pretty  little  orifice,  through  which  the  weary 
spirit  might  seize  the  opportunity  to  be  exhaled !  If 
I  had  the  ordering  of  these  matters,  fifty  should  be 
the  tenderest  age  at  which  a  recruit  might  be  accepted 
for  training  ;  at  fifty-five  or  sixty,  I  would  consider 
him  eligible  for  most  kinds  of  military  duty  and  ex 
posure,  excluding  that  of  a  forlorn  hope,  which  no 
soldier  should  be  permitted  to  volunteer  upon,  short 
of  the  ripe  age  of  seventy.  As  a  general  rule,  these 
venerable  combatants  should  have  the  preference  for 
all  dangerous  and  honorable  service  in  the  order  of 
their  seniority,  with  a  distinction  in  favor  of  those 
whose  infirmities  might  render  their  lives  less  worth 
the  keeping.  Methinks  there  would  be  no  more  Bull 
Runs ;  a  warrior  with  gout  in  his  toe,  or  rheumatism 
in  his  joints, '  or  with  one  foot  in  the  grave,  would 
make  a  sorry  fugitive  ! 

On  this  admirable  system,  the  productive  part  of  the 
population  would  be  undisturbed  even  by  the  bloodiest 
war ;  and,  best  of  all,  those  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  our  Northern  girls,  whose  proper  mates  will  perish 
in  camp-hospitals  or  on  Southern  battle-fields,  would 
avoid  their  doom  of  forlorn  old-maidenhood.  But,  no 
doubt,  the  plan  will  be  pooh-poohed  down  by  the  War 
Department ;  though  it  could  scarcely  be  more  disas 
trous  than  the  one  on  which  we  began  the  war,  when 
a  young  army  was  struck  with  paralysis  through  the 
age  of  its  commander. 

The  waters  around  Fortress  Monroe  were  thronged 
with  a  gallant  array  of  ships  of  war  and  transports, 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS.         335 

wearing  the  Union  flag,  —  "  Old  Glory,"  as  I  hear  it 
called  in  these  days.  A  little  withdrawn  from  our  na 
tional  fleet  lay  two  French  frigates,  and,  in  another 
direction,  an  English  sloop,  under  that  banner  which 
always  makes  itself  visible,  like  a  red  portent  in  the 
air,  wherever  there  is  strife.  In  pursuance  of  our 
official  duty  (which  had  no  ascertainable  limits),  we 
went  on  board  the  flag -ship,  and  were  shown  over 
every  part  of  her,  and  down  into  her  depths,  inspect 
ing  her  gallant  crew,  her  powerful  armament,  her 
mighty  engines,  and  her  furnaces,  where  the  fires  are 
always  kept  burning,  as  well  at  midnight  as  at  noon, 
so  that  it  would  require  only  five  minutes  to  put  the 
vessel  under  full  steam.  This  vigilance  has  been  felt 
necessary  ever  since  the  Merrimack  made  that  terri 
ble  dash  from  Norfolk.  Splendid  as  she  is,  however, 
and  provided  with  all  but  the  very  latest  improvements 
in  naval  armament,  the  Minnesota  belongs  to  a  class 
of  vessels  that  will  be  built  no  more,  nor  ever  fight 
another  battle,  —  being  as  much  a  thing  of  the  past 
as  any  of  the  ships  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time,  which 
grappled  with  the  galleons  of  the  Spanish  Armada. 

On  her  quarter-deck,  an  elderly  flag-officer  was  pac 
ing  to  and  fro,  with  a  self-conscious  dignity  to  which 
a  touch  of  the  gout  or  rheumatism  perhaps  contrib 
uted  a  little  additional  stiffness.  He  seemed  to  be  a 
gallant  gentleman,  but  of  the  old,  slow,  and  pompous 
school  of  naval  worthies,  who  have  grown  up  amid 
rules,  forms,  and  etiquette  which  were  adopted  full 
blown  from  the  British  navy  into  ours,  and  are  some 
what  too  cumbrous  for  the  quick  spirit  of  to-day.  This 
order  of  nautical  heroes  will  probably  go  down,  along 
with  the  ships  in  which  they  fought  valorously  and 
strutted  most  intolerably.  How  can  an  admiral  con- 


336          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS. 

descend  to  go  to  sea  in  an  iron  pot  ?  What  space  and 
elbow-room  can  be  found  for  quarter-deck  dignity  in 
the  cramped  lookout  of  the  Monitor,  or  even  in  the 
twenty-feet  diameter  of  her  cheese-box  ?  All  the  pomp 
and  splendor  of  naval  warfare  are  gone  by.  Hence 
forth  there  must  come  up  a  race  of  enginemen  and 
smoke-blackened  cannoneers,  who  will  hammer  away 
at  their  enemies  under  the  direction  of  a  single  pair  of 
eyes  ;  and  even  heroism  —  so  deadly  a  gripe  is  Science 
laying  on  our  noble  possibilities  —  will  become  a  qual 
ity  of  very  minor  importance,  when  its  possessor  can 
not  break  through  the  iron  crust  of  his  own  armament 
and  give  the  world  a  glimpse  of  it. 

At  no  great  distance  from  the  Minnesota  lay  the 
strangest-looking  craft  I  ever  saw.  It  was  a  platform 
of  iron,  so  nearly  on  a  level  with  the  water  that  the 
swash  of  the  waves  broke  over  it,  under  the  impulse 
of  a  very  moderate  breeze  ;  and  on  this  platform  was 
raised  a  circular  structure,  likewise  of  iron,  and  rather 
broad  and  capacious,  but  of  no  great  height.  It  could 
not  be  called  a  vessel  at  all ;  it  was  a  machine,  —  and 
I  have  seen  one  of  somewhat  similar  appearance  em 
ployed  in  cleaning  out  the  docks ;  or,  for  lack  of  a 
better  similitude,  it  looked  like  a  gigantic  rat-trap.  It 
was  ugly,  questionable,  suspicious,  evidently  mischiev 
ous,  —  nay,  I  will  allow  myself  to  call  it  devilish ;  for 
this  was  the  new  war-fiend,  destined,  along  with  others 
of  the  same  breed,  to  annihilate  whole  navies  and 
batter  down  old  supremacies.  The  wooden  walls  of 
Old  England  cease  to  exist,  and  a  whole  history  of 
naval  renown  reaches  its  period,  now  that  the  Moni 
tor  comes  smoking  into  view ;  while  the  billows  dash 
over  what  seems  her  deck,  and  storms  bury  even  her 
turret  in  green  water,  as  she  burrows  and  snorts 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS.         337 

along,  oftener  under  the  surface  than  above.  The  sin 
gularity  of  the  object  has  betrayed  me  into  a  more  am 
bitious  vein  of  description  than  I  often  indulge  ;  and, 
after  all,  I  might  as  well  have  contented  myself  with 
simply  saying  that  she  looked  very  queer. 

Going  on  board,  we  were  surprised  at  the  extent  and 
convenience  of  her  interior  accommodations.  There  is 
a  spacious  ward-room,  nine  or  ten  feet  in  height,  be 
sides  a  private  cabin  for  the  commander,  and  sleep 
ing  accommodations  on  an  ample  scale  ;  the  whole  well 
lighted  and  ventilated,  though  beneath  the  surface  of 
the  water.  Forward,  or  aft  (for  it  is  impossible  to 
tell  stem  from  stern),  the  crew  are  relatively  quite  as 
well  provided  for  as  the  officers.  It  was  like  finding 
a  palace,  with  all  its  conveniences,  under  the  sea.  The 
inaccessibility,  the  apparent  impregnability,  of  this 
submerged  iron  fortress  are  most  satisfactory ;  the 
officers  and  crew  get  down  through  a  little  hole  in  the 
deck,  hermetically  seal  themselves,  and  go  below  ;  and 
until  they  see  fit  to  reappear,  there  would  seem  to  be 
no  power  given  to  man  whereby  they  can  be  brought 
to  light.  A  storm  of  cannon-shot  damages  them  no 
more  than  a  handful  of  dried  peas.  We  saw  the  shot- 
marks  made  by  the  great  artillery  of  the  Merrimack 
on  the  outer  casing  of  the  iron  tower ;  they  were  about 
the  breadth  and  depth  of  shallow  saucers,  almost  im 
perceptible  dents,  with  no  corresponding  bulge  on  the 
interior  surface.  In  fact,  the  thing  looked  altogether 
too  safe  ;  though  it  may  not  prove  quite  an  agreeable 
predicament  to  be  thus  boxed  up  in  impenetrable  iron, 
with  the  possibility,  one  would  imagine,  of  being  sent 
to  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and,  even  there,  not  drowned, 
but  stifled.  Nothing,  however,  can  exceed  the  confi 
dence  of  the  officers  in  this  new  craft.  It  was  pleasant 


338  CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

to  see  their  benign  exultation  in  her  powers  of  mis 
chief,  and  the  delight  with  which  they  exhibited  the 
circumvolutory  movement  of  the  tower,  the  quick 
thrusting  forth  of  the  immense  guns  to  deliver  their 
ponderous  missiles,  and  then  the  immediate  recoil,  and 
the  security  behind  the  closed  port-holes.  Yet  even 
this  will  not  long  be  the  last  and  most  terrible  im 
provement  in  the  science  of  war.  Already  we  hear  of 
vessels  the  armament  of  which  is  to  act  entirely  be 
neath  the  surface  of  the  water  ;  so  that,  with  no  other 
external  symptoms  than  a  great  bubbling  and  foaming, 
and  gush  of  smoke,  and  belch  of  smothered  thunder 
out  of  the  yeasty  waves,  there  shall  be  a  deadly  fight 
going  on  below,  —  and,  by  and  by,  a  sucking  whirlpool, 
as  one  of  the  ships  goes  down. 

The  Monitor  was  certainly  an  object  of  great  in 
terest  ;  but  on  our  way  to  Newport  News,  whither  we 
next  went,  we  saw  a  spectacle  that  affected  us  with  far 
profounder  emotion.  It  was  the  sight  of  the  few 
sticks  that  are  left  of  the  frigate  Congress,  stranded 
near  the  shore,  —  and  still  more,  the  masts  of  the 
Cumberland  rising  midway  out  of  the  water,  with  a 
tattered  rag  of  a  pennant  fluttering  from  one  of  them. 
The  invisible  hull  of  the  latter  ship  seems  to  be  ca 
reened  over,  so  that  the  three  masts  stand  slantwise ; 
the  rigging  looks  quite  unimpaired,  except  that  a  few 
ropes  dangle  loosely  from  the  yards.  The  flag  (which 
never  was  struck,  thank  Heaven !  )  is  entirely  hidden 
under  the  waters  of  the  bay,  but  is  still  doubtless 
waving  in  its  old  place,  although  it  floats  to  and  fro 
with  the  swell  and  reflux  of  the  tide,  instead  of  rust 
ling  on  the  breeze.  A  remnant  of  the  dead  crew  still 
man  the  sunken  ship,  and  sometimes  a  drowned  body 
floats  up  to  the  surface. 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR   MATTERS.          339 

That  was  a  noble  fight.  When  was  ever  a  better 
word  spoken  than  that  of  Commodore  Smith,  the  father 
of  the  commander  of  the  Congress,  when  he  heard  that 
his  son's  ship  was  surrendered  ?  "  Then  Joe  's  dead  !  " 
said  he ;  and  so  it  proved.  Nor  can  any  warrior  be 
more  certain  of  enduring  renown  than  the  gallant 
Morris,  who  fought  so  well  the  final  battle  of  the  old 
system  of  naval  warfare,  and  won  glory  for  his  coun 
try  and  himself  out  of  inevitable  disaster  and  defeat. 
That  last  gun  from  the  Cumberland,  when  her  deck 
was  half  submerged,  sounded  the  requiem  of  many 
sinking  ships.  Then  went  down  all  the  navies  of 
Europe,  and  our  own,  Old  Ironsides  and  all,  and  Traf 
algar  and  a  thousand  other  fights  became  only  a  mem 
ory,  never  to  be  acted  over  again ;  and  thus  our  brave 
countrymen  come  last  in  the  long  procession  of  heroic 
sailors  that  includes  Blake  and  Nelson,  and  so  many 
mariners  of  England,  and  other  mariners  as  brave  as 
they,  whose  renown  is  our  native  inheritance.  There 
will  be  other  battles,  but  no  more  such  tests  of  sea 
manship  and  manhood  as  the  battles  of  the  past ;  and, 
moreover,  the  Millennium  is  certainly  approaching,  be 
cause  human  strife  is  to  be  transferred  from  the  heart 
and  personality  of  man  into  cunning  contrivances  of 
machinery,  which  by  and  by  will  fight  out  our  wars 
with  only  the  clank  and  smash  of  iron,  strewing  the 
field  with  broken  engines,  but  damaging  nobody's  lit 
tle  finger  except  by  accident.  Such  is  obviously  the 
tendency  of  modern  improvement.  But,  in  the  mean 
while,  so  long  as  manhood  retains  any  part  of  its  pris 
tine  value,  no  country  can  afford  to  let  gallantry  like 
that  of  Morris  and  his  crew,  any  more  than  that  of 
the  brave  Word  en,  pass  unhonored  and  unrewarded. 
If  the  Government  do  nothing,  let  the  people  take  the 


340          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

matter  into  their  own  hands,  and  cities  give  him 
swords,  gold  boxes,  festivals  of  triumph,  and,  if  he 
needs  it,  heaps  of  gold.  Let  poets  brood  upon  the 
theme,  and  make  themselves  sensible  how  much  of  the 
past  and  future  is  contained  within  its  compass,  till  its 
spirit  shall  flash  forth  in  the  lightning  of  a  song  ! 

From  these  various  excursions,  and  a  good  many 
others  (including  one  to  Manassas),  we  gained  a  pretty 
lively  idea  of  what  was  going  on  ;  but,  after  all,  if 
compelled  to  pass  a  rainy  day  in  the  hall  and  parlors 
of  Willard's  Hotel,  it  proved  about  as  profitably  spent 
as  if  we  had  floundered  through  miles  of  Virginia 
mud,  in  quest  of  interesting  matter.  This  hotel,  in 
fact,  may  be  much  more  justly  called  the  centre  of 
Washington  and  the  Union  than  either  the  Capitol, 
the  White  House,  or  the  State  Department.  Every 
body  may  be  seen  there.  It  is  the  meeting-place  of 
the  true  representatives  of  the  country,  —  not  such  as 
are  chosen  blindly  and  amiss  by  electors  who  take  a 
folded  ballot  from  the  hand  of  a  local  politician,  and 
thrust  it  into  the  ballot-box  unread,  but  men  who 
gravitate  or  are  attracted  hither  by  real  business,  or  a 
native  impulse  to  breathe  the  intensest  atmosphere  of 
the  nation's  life,  or  a  genuine  anxiety  to  see  how  this 
life-and-death  struggle  is  going  to  deal  with  us.  Nor 
these  only,  but  all  manner  of  loafers.  Never,  in  any 
other  spot,  was  there  such  a  miscellany  of  people. 
You  exchange  nods  with  governors  of  sovereign  States ; 
you  elbow  illustrious  men,  and  tread  on  the  toes  of 
generals  ;  you  hear  statesmen  and  orators  speaking  in 
their  familiar  tones.  You  are  mixed  up  with  office- 
seekers,  wire-pullers,  inventors,  artists,  poets,  prosers 
(including  editors,  army  -  correspondents,  attaches  of 
foreign  journals,  and  long-winded  talkers),  clerks, 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT  WAR  MATTERS.         341 

diplomatists,  mail  -  contractors,  railway-directors,  until 
your  own  identity  is  lost  among  them.  Occasionally 
you  talk  with  a  man  whom  you  have  never  before 
heard  of,  and  are  struck  by  the  brightness  of  a 
thought,  and  fancy  that  there  is  more  wisdom  hidden 
among  the  obscure  than  is  anywhere  revealed  among 
the  famous.  You  adopt  the  universal  habit  of  the 
place,  and  call  for  a  mint-julep,  a  whiskey-skin,  a  gin- 
cocktail,  a  brandy-smash,  or  a  glass  of  pure  Old  Rye  ; 
for  the  conviviality  of  Washington  sets  in  at  an  early 
hour,  and,  so  far  as  I  had  an  opportunity  of  observing, 
never  terminates  at  any  hour,  and  all  these  drinks  are 
continually  in  request  by  almost  all  these  people.  A 
constant  atmosphere  of  cigar-smoke,  too,  envelops  the 
motley  crowd,  and  forms  a  sympathetic  medium,  in 
which  men  meet  more  closely  and  talk  more  frankly 
than  in  any  other  kind  of  air.  If  legislators  would 
smoke  in  session,  they  might  speak  truer  words,  and 
fewer  of  them,  and  bring  about  more  valuable  results. 
It  is  curious  to  observe  what  antiquated  figures  and 
costumes  sometimes  make  their  appearance  at  Wil- 
lard's.  You  meet  elderly  men  with  frilled  shirt-fronts, 
for  example,  the  fashion  of  which  adornment  passed 
away  from  among  the  people  of  this  world  half  a  cen 
tury  ago.  It  is  as  if  one  of  Stuart's  portraits  were 
walking  abroad.  I  see  no  way  of  accounting  for  this, 
except  that  the  trouble  of  the  times,  the  impiety  of 
traitors,  and  the  peril  of  our  sacred  Union  and  Con 
stitution  have  disturbed,  in  their  honored  graves,  some 
of  the  venerable  fathers  of  the  country,  and  summoned 
them  forth  to  protest  against  the  meditated  and  half- 
accomplished  sacrilege.  If  it  be  so,  their  wonted  fires 
are  not  altogether  extinguished  in  their  ashes,  —  in 
their  throats,  I  might  rather  say,  —  for  I  beheld  one 


342          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

of  these  excellent  old  men  quaffing  such  a  horn  of 
Bourbon  whiskey  as  a  toper  of  the  present  century 
would  be  loath  to  venture  upon.  But,  really,  one 
would  be  glad  to  know  where  these  strange  figures 
come  from.  It  shows,  at  any  rate,  how  many  remote, 
decaying  villages  and  country  -  neighborhoods  of  the 
North,  and  forest-nooks  of  the  West,  and  old  mansion- 
houses  in  cities,  are  shaken  by  the  tremor  of  our  na 
tive  soil,  so  that  men  long  hidden  in  retirement  put 
on  the  garments  of  their  youth  and  hurry  out  to  in 
quire  what  is  the  matter.  The  old  men  whom  we  see 
here  have  generally  more  marked  faces  than  the  young 
ones,  and  naturally  enough ;  since  it  must  be  an  ex 
traordinary  vigor  and  renewability  of  life  that  can 
overcome  the  rusty  sloth  of  age,  and  keep  the  senior 
flexible  enough  to  take  an  interest  in  new  things ; 
whereas  hundreds  of  commonplace  young  men  come 
hither  to  stare  with  eyes  of  vacant  wonder,  and  with 
vague  hopes  of  finding  out  what  they  are  fit  for.  And 
this  war  (we  may  say  so  much  in  its  favor)  has  been 
the  means  of  discovering  that  important  secret  to  not 
a  few. 

We  saw  at  Willard's  many  who  had  thus  found  out 
for  themselves,  that,  when  Nature  gives  a  young  man 
no  other  utilizable  faculty,  she  must  be  understood  as 
intending  him  for  a  soldier.  The  bulk  of  the  army 
had  moved  out  of  Washington  before  we  reached  the 
city  ;  yet  it  seemed  to  me  that  at  least  two  thirds  of 
the  guests  and  idlers  at  the  hotel  wore  one  or  another 
token  of  the  military  profession.  Many  of  them,  no 
doubt,  were  self-commissioned  officers,  and  had  put  on 
the  buttons  and  the  shoulder-straps,  and  booted  them 
selves  to  the  knees,  merely  because  captain,  in  these 
days,  is  so  good  a  travelling  -  name.  The  majority, 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         343 

however,  had  been  duly  appointed  by  the  President, 
but  might  be  none  the  better  warriors  for  that.  It 
was  pleasant,  occasionally,  to  distinguish  a  grizzly  vet 
eran  among  this  crowd  of  carpet-knights,  —  the  trained 
soldier  of  a  lifetime,  long  ago  from  West  Point,  who 
had  spent  his  prime  upon  the  frontier,  and  very  likely 
could  show  an  Indian  bullet -mark  on  his  breast, — - 
if  such  decorations,  won  in  an  obscure  warfare,  were 
worth  the  showing  now. 

The  question  often  occurred  to  me,  —  and,  to  say 
the  truth,  it  added  an  indefinable  piquancy  to  the 
scene,  —  what  proportion  of  all  these  people,  whether 
soldiers  or  civilians,  were  true  at  heart  to  the  Union, 
and  what  part  were  tainted,  more  or  less,  with  treason 
able  sympathies  and  wishes,  even  if  such  had  never 
blossomed  into  purpose.  Traitors  there  were  among 
them,  —  no  doubt  of  that,  —  civil  servants  of  the  pub 
lic,  very  reputable  persons,  who  yet  deserved  to  dan 
gle  from  a  cord ;  or  men  who  buttoned  military  coats 
over  their  breasts,  hiding  perilous  secrets  there,  which 
might  bring  the  gallant  officer  to  stand  pale-faced  be 
fore  a  file  of  musketeers,  with  his  open  grave  behind 
him.  But,  without  insisting  upon  such  picturesque 
criminality  and  punishment  as  this,  an  observer,  who 
kept  both  his  eyes  and  heart  open,  would  find  it  by  no 
means  difficult  to  discern  that  many  residents  and  vis 
itors  of  Washington  so  far  sided  with  the  South  as  to 
desire  nothing  more  nor  better  than  to  see  everything 
reestablished  a  little  worse  than  its  former  basis.  If 
the  cabinet  of  Richmond  were  transferred  to  the  Fed 
eral  city,  and  the  North  awfully  snubbed,  at  least,  and 
driven  back  within  its  old  political  limits,  they  would 
deem  it  a  happy  day.  It  is  no  wonder,  and,  if  we 
look  at  the  matter  generously,  no  unpardonable  crime. 


344          CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS. 

Very  excellent  people  hereabouts  remember  the  many 
dynasties  in  which  the  Southern  character  has  been 
predominant,  and  contrast  the  genial  courtesy,  the 
warm  and  graceful  freedom  of  that  region,  with  what 
they  call  (though  I  utterly  disagree  with  them)  the 
frigidity  of  our  Northern  manners,  and  the  Western 
plainness  of  the  President.  They  have  a  conscien 
tious,  though  mistaken  belief,  that  the  South  was 
driven  out  of  the  Union  by  intolerable  wrong  on  our 
part,  and  that  we  are  responsible  for  having  compelled 
true  patriots  to  love  only  half  their  country  instead  of 
the  whole,  and  brave  soldiers  to  draw  their  swords 
against  the  Constitution  which  they  would  once  have 
died  for,  —  to  draw  them,  too,  with  a  bitterness  of 
animosity  which  is  the  only  symptom  of  brotherhood 
(since  brothers  hate  each  other  best)  that  any  longer 
exists.  They  whisper  these  things  with  tears  in  their 
eyes,  and  shake  their  heads,  and  stoop  their  poor  old 
shoulders,  at  the  tidings  of  another  and  another  North 
ern  victory,  which,  in  their  opinion,  puts  farther  off 
the  remote,  the  already  impossible,  chance  of  a  re 
union. 

1  am  sorry  for  them,  though  it  is  by  no  means  a 
sorrow  without  hope.  Since  the  matter  has  gone  so 
far,  there  seems  to  be  no  way  but  to  go  on  winning 
victories,  and  establishing  peace  and  a  truer  union  in 
another  generation,  at  the  expense,  probably,  of  greater 
trouble,  in  the  present  one,  than  any  other  people  ever 
voluntarily  suffered.  We  woo  the  South  "  as  the  Lion 
wooes  his  bride ; "  it  is  a  rough  courtship,  but  perhaps 
love  and  a  quiet  household  may  come  of  it  at  last. 
Or,  if  we*  stop  short  of  that  blessed  consummation, 
heaven  was  heaven  still,  as  Milton  sings,  after  Lucifer 
and  a  third  part  of  the  angels  had  seceded  from  its 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT   WAR  MATTERS.         345 

golden  palaces,  —  and  perhaps  all  the  more  heavenly, 
because  so  many  gloomy  brows,  and  soured,  vindictive 
hearts,  had  gone  to  plot  ineffectual  schemes  of  mischief 
elsewhere.1 

1  We  regret  the  innuendo  in  the  concluding  sentence.  The  war 
can  never  be  allowed  to  terminate,  except  in  the  complete  triumph  of 
Northern  principles.  We  hold  the  event  in  our  own  hands,  and  may 
choose  whether  to  terminate  it  by  the  methods  already  so  successfully 
used,  or  by  other  means  equally  within  our  control,  and  calculated  to 
be  still  more  speedily  efficacious.  In  truth,  the  work  is  already  done. 

We  should  be  sorry  to  cast  a  doubt  on  the  Peaceable  Man's  loyalty, 
but  he  will  allow  us  to  say  that  we  consider  him  premature  in  his 
kindly  feelings  towards  traitors  and  sympathizers  with  treason.  As 
the  author  himself  says  of  John  Brown  (and,  so  applied,  we  thought 
it  an  atrociously  cold-blooded  dictum),  "  any  common-sensible  man 
would  feel  an  intellectual  satisfaction  in  seeing  them  hanged,  were  it 
only  for  their  preposterous  miscalculation  of  possibilities."  There 
are  some  degrees  of  absurdity  that  put  Reason  herself  into  a  rage, 
and  affect  us  like  an  intolerable  crime,  —  which  this  Rebellion  is,  into 
the  bargain. 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 


LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 


PREFACE. 

THE  author  of  this  memoir  —  being  so  little  of  a 
politician  that  he  scarcely  feels  entitled  to  call  himself 
a  member  of  any  party  —  would  not  voluntarily  have 
undertaken  the  work  here  offered  to  the  public. 
Neither  can  he  flatter  himself  that  he  has  been  remark 
ably  successful  in  the  performance  of  his  task,  viewing 
it  in  the  light  of  a  political  biography,  and  as  a  repre 
sentation  of  the  principles  and  acts  of  a  public  man, 
intended  to  operate  upon  the  minds  of  multitudes  dur 
ing  a  presidential  canvass.  This  species  of  writing  is 
too  remote  from  his  customary  occupations  —  and,  he 
may  add,  from  his  tastes  —  to  be  very  satisfactorily 
done,  without  more  time  and  practice  than  he  would 
be  willing  to  expend  for  such  a  purpose.  If  this  little 
biography  have  any  value,  it  is  probably  of  another 
kind  —  as  the  narrative  of  one  who  knew  the  individ. 
ual  of  whom  he  treats,  at  a  period  of  life  when  char 
acter  could  be  read  with  undoubting  accuracy,  and 
who,  consequently,  in  judging  of  the  motives  of  his 
subsequent  conduct,  has  an  advantage  over  much  more 
competent  observers,  whose  knowledge  of  the  man  may 
have  commenced  at  a  later  date.  Nor  can  it  be  con 
sidered  improper  (at  least  the  author  will  never  feel 
it  so,  although  some  foolish  delicacy  be  sacrificed  in 
the  undertaking),  that  when  a  friend,  dear  to  him  al 
most  from  boyish  days,  stands  up  before  his  country, 


350  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

misrepresented  by  indiscriminate  abuse,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  by  aimless  praise,  on  the  other,  he  should 
be  sketched  by  one  who  has  had  opportunities  of  know- 
ing  him  well,  and  who  is  certainly  inclined  to  tell  the 
truth. 

It  is  perhaps  right  to  say,  that  while  this  biography 
is  so  far  sanctioned  by  General  Pierce,  as  it  comprises 
a  generally  correct  narrative  of  the  principal  events  of 
his  life,  the  author  does  not  understand  him  as  thereby 
necessarily  indorsing  all  the  sentiments  put  forth  by 
himself,  in  the  progress  of  the  work.  These  are  the 
author's  own  speculations  upon  the  facts  before  him, 
and  may,  or  may  not,  be  in  accordance  with  the  ideas 
of  the  individual  whose  life  he  writes.  That  individ 
ual's  opinions,  however,  —  so  far  as  it  is  necessary  to 
know  them,  —  may  be  read,  in  his  straightforward  and 
consistent  deeds,  with  more  certainty  than  those  of  al 
most  any  other  man  now  before  the  public. 

The  author,  while  collecting  his  materials,  has  re 
ceived  liberal  aid  from  all  manner  of  people  —  Whigs 
and  Democrats,  congressmen,  astute  lawyers,  grim  old 
generals  of  militia,  and  gallant  young  officers  of  the 
Mexican  war  —  most  of  whom,  however,  he  must  needs 
say,  have  rather  abounded  in  eulogy  of  General  Pierce 
than  in  such  anecdotical  matter  as  is  calculated  for  a 
biography.  Among  the  gentlemen  to  whom  he  is  sub 
stantially  indebted,  he  would  mention  Hon.  C.  G. 
Atherton,  Hon.  S.  H.  Ayer,  Hon.  Joseph  Hall,  Chief 
Justice  Gilchrist,  Isaac  O.  Barnes,  Esq.,  Col.  T.  J. 
Whipple,  and  Mr.  C.  J.  Smith.  He  has  likewise 
derived  much  assistance  from  an  able  and  accurate 
sketch,  that  originally  appeared  in  the  "  Boston  Post," 
and  was  drawn  up,  as  he  believes,  by  the  junior  editor 
of  that  journal. 

CONCORD,  MASS.,  August  27,  1852. 


CHAPTER  I. 

HIS    PARENTAGE   AND    EARLY   LIFE. 

FRANKLIN  PIERCE  was  born  at  Hillsborough,  in  the 
State  of  New  Hampshire,  on  the  23d  of  November, 
1804.  His  native  county,  at  the  period  of  his  birth, 
covered  a  much  more  extensive  territory  than  at  pres 
ent,  and  might  reckon  among  its  children  many  mem 
orable  men,  and  some  illustrious  ones.  General  Stark, 
the  hero  of  Bennington,  Daniel  Webster,  Levi  Wood- 
bury,  Jeremiah  Smith,  the  eminent  jurist,  and  gover 
nor  of  the  state,  General  James  Miller,  General 
McNeil,  Senator  Atherton,  were  natives  of  old  Hills- 
borough  County. 

General  Benjamin  Pierce,  the  father  of  Franklin, 
was  one  of  the  earliest  settlers  in  the  town  of  Hills- 
borough,  and  contributed  as  much  as  any  other  man 
to  the  growth  and  prosperity  of  the  county.  He  was 
born  in  1757,  at  Chelmsford,  now  Lowell,  in  Mas 
sachusetts.  Losing  his  parents  early,  he  grew  up  un 
der  the  care  of  an  uncle,  amid  such  circumstances  of 
simple  fare,  hard  labor,  and  scanty  education  as  usu 
ally  fell  to  the  lot  of  a  New  England  yeoman's  family 
some  eighty  or  a  hundred  years  ago.  On  the  19th  of 
April,  1775,  being  then  less  than  eighteen  years  of 
age,  the  stripling  was  at  the  plough,  when  tidings 
reached  him  of  the  bloodshed  at  Lexington  and  Con 
cord.  He  immediately  loosened  the  ox  chain,  left  the 
plough  in  the  furrow,  took  his  uncle's  gun  and  equip- 


352  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

ments,  and  set  forth  towards  the  scene  of  action. 
From  that  day,  for  more  than  seven  years,  he  never 
saw  his  native  place.  He  enlisted  in  the  army,  was 
present  at  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  after  serving 
through  the  whole  Revolutionary  War,  and  fighting  his 
way  upward  from  the  lowest  grade,  returned,  at  last, 
a  thorough  soldier,  and  commander  of  a  company. 
He  was  retained  in  the  army  as  long  as  that  body  of 
veterans  had  a  united  existence  ;  and,  being  finally 
disbanded,  at  West  Point,  in  1784,  was  left  with  no 
other  reward,  for  nine  years  of  toil  and  danger,  than 
the  nominal  amount  of  his  pay  in  the  Continental 
currency — then  so  depreciated  as  to  be  almost  worth 
less. 

In  1785,  being  employed  as  agent  to  explore  a  tract 
of  wild  land,  he  purchased  a  lot  of  fifty  acres  in  what 
is  now  the  town  of  Hillsborough.  In  the  spring  of 
the  succeeding  year,  he  built  himself  a  log  hut,  and 
began  the  clearing  and  cultivation  of  his  tract.  An 
other  year  beheld  him  married  to  his  first  wife,  Eliza 
beth  Andrews,  who  died  within  a  twelvemonth  after 
their  union,  leaving  a  daughter,  the  present  widow  of 
General  John  McNeil.  In  1789,  he  married  Anna 
Kendrick,  with  whom  he  lived  about  half  a  century, 
and  who  bore  him  eight  children, -of  whom  Franklin 
was  the  sixth. 

Although  the  revolutionary  soldier  had  thus  be 
taken  himself  to  the  wilderness  for  a  subsistence,  his 
professional  merits  were  not  forgotten  by  those  who 
had  witnessed  his  military  career.  As  early  as  1786, 
he  was  appointed  brigade  major  of  the  militia  of  Hills- 
borough  County,  then  first  organized  and  formed  into 
a  brigade.  And  it  was  a  still  stronger  testimonial  to 
his  character  as  a  soldier,  that,  nearly  fifteen  years  a£ 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  353 

ter wards,  during  the  presidency  of  John  Adams,  he 
was  offered  a  high  command  in  the  northern  division 
of  the  army  which  was  proposed  to  be  levied  in  antici 
pation  of  a  war  with  the  French  republic.  Inflexibly 
democratic  in  his  political  faith,  however,  Major  Pierce 
refused  to  be  implicated  in  a  policy  which  he  could  not 
approve.  "  No,  gentlemen,"  said  he  to  the  delegates 
who  urged  his  acceptance  of  the  commission,  "  poor  as 
I  am,  and  acceptable  as  would  be  the  position  under 
other  circumstances,  I  would  sooner  go  to  yonder 
mountains,  dig  me  a  cave,  and  live  on  roast  potatoes, 
than  be  instrumental  in  promoting  the  objects  for 
which  that  army  is  to  be  raised  !  "  This  same  fidelity 
to  his  principles  marked  every  public,  as  well  as  pri 
vate,  action  of  his  life. 

In  his  own  neighborhood,  among  those  who  knew 
him  best,  he  early  gained  an  influence  that  was  never 
lost  nor  diminished,  but  continued  to  spread  wider 
during  the  whole  of  his  long  life.  In  1789,  he  was 
elected  to  the  state  legislature  and  retained  that  posi 
tion  for  thirteen  successive  years,  until  chosen  a  mem 
ber  of  the  council.  During  the  same  period,  he  was 
active  in  his  military  duties,  as  a  field  officer,  and  fi 
nally  general,  of  the  militia  of  the  county ;  and  Miller, 
McNeil,  and  others  learned  of  him,  in  this  capacity, 
the  goldier-like  discipline  which  was  afterwards  dis 
played  on  the  battle  fields  of  the  northern  frontier. 

The  history,  character,  and  circumstances  of  Gen 
eral  Benjamin  Pierce,  though  here  but  briefly  touched 
upon,  are  essential  parts  of  the  biography  of  his  son, 
both  as  indicating  some  of  the  native  traits  which  the 
latter  has  inherited,  and  as  showing  the  influences 
amid  which  he  grew  up.  At  Franklin  Pierce's  birth, 
and  for  many  years  subsequent,  his  father  was  the 

VOL.  xit.  23 


354  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

most  active  and  public-spirited  man  within  his  sphere ; 
a  most  decided  Democrat,  and  supporter  of  Jefferson 
and  Madison  ;  a  practical  farmer,  moreover,  not  rich, 
but  independent,  exercising  a  liberal  hospitality,  and 
noted  for  the  kindness  and  generosity  of  his  charac 
ter  ;  a  man  of  the  people,  but  whose  natural  qualities 
inevitably  made  him  a  leader  among  them.  From  in 
fancy  upward,  the  boy  had  before  his  eyes,  as  the 
model  on  which  he  might  instinctively  form  himself, 
one  of  the  best  specimens  of  sterling  New  England 
character,  developed  in  a  life  of  simple  habits,  yet  of 
elevated  action.  Patriotism,  such  as  it  had  been  in 
revolutionary  days,  was  taught  him  by  his  father,  as 
early  as  his  mother  taught  him  religion.  He  became 
early  imbued,  too,  with  the  military  spirit  which  the 
old  soldier  had  retained  from  his  long  service,  and 
which  was  kept  active  by  the  constant  alarms  and  war 
like  preparations  of  the  first  twelve  years  of  the  pres 
ent  century.  If  any  man  is  bound,  by  birth  and  youth 
ful  training,  to  show  himself  a  brave,  faithful,  and 
able  citizen  of  his  native  country,  it  is  the  son  of  such 
a  father. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  war  of  1812,  Franklin 
Pierce  was  a  few  months  under  eight  years  of  age. 
The  old  general,  his  father,  sent  two  of  his  sons  into 
the  army ;  and  as  his  eldest  daughter  was  soon  after 
wards  married  to  Major  McNeil,  there  were  few  fami 
lies  that  had  so  large  a  personal  stake  in  the  war  as 
that  of  General  Benjamin  Pierce.  He  himself,  both 
in  his  public  capacity  as  a  member  of  the  council,  and 
by  his  great  local  influence  in  his  own  county,  lent  a 
strenuous  support  to  the  national  administration.  It 
is  attributable  to  his  sagacity  and  energy,  that  New 
Hampshire  —  then  under  a  federal  governor  —  was 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  355 

saved  the  disgrace  of  participation  in  the  questionable, 
if  not  treasonable  projects  of  the  Hartford  Convention. 
He  identified  himself  with  the  cause  of  the  country, 
and  was  doubtless  as  thoroughly  alive  with  patriotic 
zeal,  at  this  eventful  period,  as  in  the  old  days  of 
Bunker  Hill,  and  Saratoga,  and  Yorktown.  The  gen 
eral  not  only  took  a  prominent  part  at  all  public  meet 
ings,  but  was  ever  ready  for  the  informal  discussion 
of  political  affairs  at  all  places  of  casual  resort,  where 
—  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of  the  time  and 
country  —  the  minds  of  men  were  made  to  operate  ef 
fectually  upon  each  other.  Franklin  Pierce  was  a  fre 
quent  auditor  of  these  controversies.  The  intentness 
with  which  he  watched  the  old  general,  and  listened 
to  his  arguments,  is  still  remembered  ;  and,  at  this 
day,  in  his  most  earnest  moods,  there  are  gesticulations 
and  movements  that  bring  up  the  image  of  his  father 
to  those  who  recollect  the  latter  on  those  occasions  of 
the  display  of  homely,  native  eloquence.  No  mode  of 
education  could  be  conceived,  better  adapted  to  imbue 
a  youth  with  the  principles  and  sentiment  of  demo 
cratic  institutions ;  it  brought  him  into  the  most  fa 
miliar  contact  with  the  popular  mind,  and  made  his 
own  mind  a  part  of  it. 

Franklin's  father  had  felt,  through  life,  the  disad 
vantages  of  a  defective  education ;  although,  in  his  pe 
culiar  sphere  of  action,  it  might  be  doubted  whether 
he  did  not  gain  more  than  he  lost,  by  being  thrown  on 
his  own  resources,  and  compelled  to  study  men  and 
their  actual  affairs,  rather  than  books.  But  he  deter 
mined  to  afford  his  son  all  the  opportunities  of  im 
provement  which  he  himself  had  lacked.  Franklin, 
accordingly,  was  early  sent  to  the  academy  at  Han 
cock,  and  afterwards  to  that  of  Francestown,  where  he 


356  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

was  received  into  the  family  of  General  Pierce's  old 
and  steadfast  friend,  Peter  Woodbury,  father  of  the 
late  eminent  judge.  It  is  scarcely  more  than  a  year 
ago,  at  the  semi-centennial  celebration  of  the  academy, 
that  Franklin  Pierce,  the  mature  and  distinguished 
man,  paid  a  beautiful  tribute  to  the  character  of  Ma 
dam  Woodbury,  in  affectionate  remembrance  of  the 
motherly  kindness  experienced  at  her  hands  by  the 
school-boy. 

The  old  people  of  his  neighborhood  give  a  very  de 
lightful  picture  of  Franklin  at  this  early  age.  They 
describe  him  as  a  beautiful  boy,  with  blue  eyes,  light 
curling  hair,  and  a  sweet  expression  of  face.  The 
traits  presented  of  him  indicate  moral  symmetry,  kind 
liness,  and  a  delicate  texture  of  sentiment,  rather  than 
marked  prominences  of  character.  His  instructors 
testify  to  his  propriety  of  conduct,  his  fellow-pupils  to 
his  sweetness  of  disposition  and  cordial  sympathy. 
One  of  the  latter,  being  older  than  most  of  his  com 
panions,  and  less  advanced  in  his  studies,  found  it  dif 
ficult  to  keep  up  with  his  class  ;  and  he  remembers 
how  perseveringly,  while  the  other  boys  were  at  play, 
Franklin  spent  the  noon  recess,  for  many  weeks  to 
gether,  in  aiding  him  in  his  lessons.  These  attributes, 
proper  to  a  generous  and  affectionate  nature,  have 
remained  with  him  through  life.  Lending  their  color 
to  his  deportment,  and  softening  his  manners,  they  are, 
perhaps,  even  now,  the  characteristics  by  which  most 
of  those  who  casually  meet  him  would  be  inclined  to 
identify  the  man.  But  there  are  other  qualities,  not 
then  developed,  but  which  have  subsequently  attained 
a  firm  and  manly  growth,  arid  are  recognized  as  his 
leading  traits  among  those  who  really  know  him. 
Franklin  Pierce's  development,  indeed,  has  always 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  357 

been  the  reverse  of  premature ;  the  boy  did  not  show 
the  germ  of  all  that  was  in  the  man,  nor,  perhaps,  did 
the  young  man  adequately  foreshow  the  mature  one. 

In  1820,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  he  became  a  student 
of  Bowdoin  College,  at  Brunswick,  Maine.  It  was  in 
the  autumn  of  the  next  year  that  the  author  of  this 
memoir  entered  the  class  below  him ;  but  our  college 
reminiscences,  however  interesting  to  the  parties  con 
cerned,  are  not  exactly  the  material  for  a  biography. 
He  was  then  a  youth,  with  the  boy  and  man  in  him, 
vivacious,  mirthful,  slender,  of  a  fair  complexion,  with 
light  hair  that  had  a  curl  in  it :  his  bright  and  cheer 
ful  aspect  made  a  kind  of  sunshine,  both  as  regarded 
its  radiance  and  its  warmth ;  insomuch  that  no  shyness 
of  disposition,  in  his  associates,  could  well  resist  its  in 
fluence.  We  soon  became  acquainted,  and  were  more 
especially  drawn  together  as  members  of  the  same  col 
lege  society.  There  were  two  of  these  institutions, 
dividing  the  college  between  them,  and  typifying,  re 
spectively,  and  with  singular  accuracy  of  feature,  the 
respectable  conservative,  and  the  progressive  or  demo 
cratic  parties.  Pierce's  native  tendencies  inevitably 
drew  him  to  the  latter. 

His  chum  was  Zenas  Caldwell,  several  years  older 
than  himself,  a  member  of  the  Methodist  persuasion, 
a  pure-minded,  studious,  devoutly  religious  character  ; 
endowed  thus  early  in  life  with  the  authority  of  a  grave 
and  sagacious  turn  of  mind.  The  friendship  between 
Pierce  and  him  appeared  to  be  mutually  strong,  and 
was  of  itself  a  pledge  of  correct  deportment  in  the  for 
mer.  His  chief  friend,  I  think,  was  a  classmate  named 
Little,  a  young  man  of  most  estimable  qualities  and 
high  intellectual  promise  ;  one  of  those  fortunate  char 
acters  whom  an  early  death  so  canonizes  in  the  remem. 


358  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

brance  of  their  companions,  that  the  perfect  fulfilment 
of  a  long  life  would  scarcely  give  them  a  higher  place. 
Jonathan  Cilley,  of  my  own  class,  —  whose  untimely 
fate  is  still  mournfully  remembered,  —  a  person  of  very 
marked  ability  and  great  social  influence,  was  another 
of  Pierce's  friends.  All  these  have  long  been  dead. 
There  are  others,  still  alive,  who  would  meet  Franklin 
Pierce,  at  this  day,  with  as  warm  a  pressure  of  the 
hand,  and  the  same  confidence  in  his  kindly  feel 
ings,  as  when  they  parted  from  him  nearly  thirty 
years  ago. 

Pierce's  class  was  small,  but  composed  of  individ 
uals  seriously  intent  on  the  duties  and  studies  of  their 
college  life.  They  were  not  boys,  but,  for  the  most 
part,  well  advanced  towards  maturity;  and,  having 
wrought  out  their  own  means  of  education,  were  little 
inclined  to  neglect  the  opportunities  that  had  been  won 
at  so  much  cost.  They  knew  the  value  of  time,  and 
had  a  sense  of  the  responsibilities  of  their  position. 
Their  first  scholar  —  the  present  Professor  Stowe  — 
has  long  since  established  his  rank  among  the  first 
scholars  of  the  country.  It  could  have  been  no  easy 
task  to  hold  successful  rivalry  with  students  so  much 
in  earnest  as  these  were.  During  the  earlier  part  of 
his  college  course,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Pierce 
was  distinguished  for  scholarship.  But,  for  the  last 
two  years,  he  appeared  to  grow  more  intent  on  the  busi 
ness  in  hand,  and,  without  losing  any  of  his  vivacious 
qualities  as  a  companion,  was  evidently  resolved  to 
gain  an  honorable  elevation  in  his  class.  His  habits 
of  attention,  and  obedience  to  college  discipline,  were 
of  the  strictest  character  ;  he  rose  progressively  in 
scholarship,  and  took  a  highly  creditable  degree. l 
1  See  note  at  close  of  this  Life. 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  359 

The  first  civil  office,  I  imagine,  which  Franklin 
Pierce  ever  held,  was  that  of  chairman  of  the  stand 
ing  committee  of  the  Athenaean  Society,  of  which,  as 
above  hinted,  we  were  both  members ;  and,  having  my 
self  held  a  place  on  the  committee,  I  can  bear  testi 
mony  to  his  having  discharged  not  only  his  own  share 
of  the  duties,  but  that  of  his  colleagues.  I  remember, 
likewise,  that  the  only  military  service  of  my  life  was  as 
a  private  soldier  in  a  college  company,  of  which  Pierce 
was  one  of  the  officers.  He  entered  into  this  latter 
business,  or  pastime,  with  an  earnestness  with  which  I 
could  not  pretend  to  compete,  and  at  which,  perhaps, 
he  would  now  be  inclined  to  smile.  His  slender  and 
youthful  figure  rises  before  my  mind's  eye,  at  this  mo 
ment,  with  the  air  and  step  of  a  veteran  of  the  school 
of  Steuben ;  as  well  became  the  son  of  a  revolutionary 
hero,  who  had  probably  drilled  under  the  old  baron's 
orders.  Indeed,  at  this  time,  and  for  some  years  after 
wards,  Pierce' s  ambition  seemed  to  be  of  a  military 
cast.  Until  reflection  had  tempered  his  first  predilec 
tions,  and  other  varieties  of  success  had  rewarded  his 
efforts,  he  would  have  preferred,  I  believe,  the  honors 
of  the  battle  field  to  any  laurels  more  peacefully  won. 
And  it  was  remarkable  how,  with  all  the  invariable 
gentleness  of  his  demeanor,  he  perfectly  gave,  never 
theless,  the  impression  of  a  high  and  fearless  spirit. 
His  friends  were  as  sure  of  his  courage,  while  yet  un 
tried,  as  now,  when  it  has  been  displayed  so  brilliantly 
in  famous  battles. 

At  this  early  period  of  his  life,  he  was  distinguished 
by  the  same  fascination  of  manner  that  has  since 
proved  so  magical  in  winning  him  an  unbounded  per 
sonal  popularity.  It  is  wronging  him,  however,  to  call 
this  peculiarity  a  mere  effect  of  manner;  its  source 


360  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

lies  deep  in  the  kindliness  of  his  nature,  and  in  the 
liberal,  generous,  catholic  sympathy,  that  embraces  all 
who  are  worthy  of  it.     Few  men  possess  any  thing 
like  it ;  so  irresistible  as  it  is,  so  sure  to  draw  forth  an 
undoubting  confidence,  and    so  true   to  the  promise 
which  it  gives.      This  frankness,  this  democracy  of 
good  feeling,  has  not  been  chilled  by  the  society  of 
politicians,  nor  polished  down  into  mere  courtesy  by 
his  intercourse  with  the  most  refined  men  of  the  day. 
It  belongs  to  him  at  this  moment,  and  will  never  leave 
him.     A  little  while  ago,  after  his  return  from  Mex 
ico,  he  darted  across  the  street  to  exchange  a  hearty 
gripe  of  the  hand  with  a  rough  countryman  upon  his 
cart  —  a  man  who  used  to  "  live  with  his  father,"  as 
the  general  explained  the  matter  to  his  companions. 
Other  men  assume  this  manner,  more  or  less  skilfully ; 
but  with  Frank  Pierce  it  is  an  innate  characteristic  ; 
nor  will  it  ever  lose  its  charm  unless  his  heart  should 
grow  narrower  and  colder  —  a  misfortune  not  to  be 
anticipated,  even  in  the  dangerous  atmosphere  of  ele 
vated  rank,  whither  he  seems  destined  to  ascend. 

There  is  little  else  that  it  is  worth  while  to  relate 
as  regards  his  college  course,  unless  it  be  that,  during 
one  of  his  winter  vacations,  Pierce  taught  a  country 
school.  So  many  of  the  statesmen  of  New  England 
have  performed  their  first  public  service  in  the  char 
acter  of  pedagogue,  that  it  seems  almost  a  necessary 
step  on  the  ladder  of  advancement. 


LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  361 

CHAPTER   II. 

HIS  SERVICES  IN  THE  STATE   AND  NATIONAL    LEGISLATURES. 

AFTEK  leaving  college,  in  the  year  1824,  Franklin 
Pierce  returned  to  Hillsborougb.  His  father,  now  in 
a  green  old  age,  continued  to  take  a  prominent  part  in 
the  affairs  of  the  day,  but  likewise  made  his  declining 
years  rich  and  picturesque  with  recollections  of  the 
heroic  times  through  which  he  had  lived.  On  the 
26th  of  December,  1825,  it  being  his  sixty  -  seventh 
birthday,  General  Benjamin  Pierce  prepared  a  festi 
val  for  his  comrades  in  arms,  the  survivors  of  the  Rev 
olution,  eighteen  of  whom,  all  inhabitants  of  Hills- 
borough,  assembled  at  his  house.  The  ages  of  these 
veterans  ranged  from  fifty-nine  up  to  the  patriarchal 
venerableness  of  nearly  ninety.  They  spent  the  day 
in  festivity,  in  calling  up  reminiscences  of  the  great 
men  whom  they  had  known,  and  the  great  deeds  which 
they  had  helped  to  do,  and  in  reviving  the  old  senti 
ments  of  the  era  of  'seventy-six.  At  nightfall,  after  a 
manly  and  pathetic  farewell  from  their  host,  they  sep 
arated  —  "  prepared,"  as  the  old  general  expressed  it, 
"  at  the  first  tap  of  the  shrouded  drum,  to  move  and 
join  their  beloved  Washington,  and  the  rest  of  their 
comrades,  who  fought  and  bled  at  their  sides."  A 
scene  like  this  must  have  been  profitable  for  a  young 
man  to  witness,  as  being  likely  to  give  him  a  stronger 
sense  than  most  of  us  can  attain  of  the  value  of  that 
Union  which  these  old  heroes  had  risked  so  much  to 
consolidate  —  of  that  common  country  which  they  had 
sacrificed  everything  to  create ;  and  patriotism  must 
have  been  communicated  from  their  hearts  to  his,  with 


362  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

somewhat  of  the  warmth  and  freshness  of  a  new-born 
sentiment.  No  youth  was  ever  more  fortunate  than 
Franklin  Pierce,  through  the  whole  of  his  early  life, 
in  this  most  desirable  species  of  moral  education. 

Having  chosen  the  law  as  a  profession,  Franklin  be 
came  a  student  in  the  office  of  Judge  Woodbury,  of 
Portsmouth.  Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the 
friendship  between  General  Benjamin  Pierce  and  Peter 
Woodbury,  the  father  of  the  judge.  The  early  prog 
ress  of  Levi  Woodbury  towards  eminence  had  been 
facilitated  by  the  powerful  influence  of  his  father's 
friend.  It  was  a  worthy  and  honorable  kind  of  patron 
age,  and  bestowed  only  as  the  great  abilities  of  the 
recipient  vindicated  his  claim  to  it.  Few  young  men 
have  met  with  such  early  success  in  life,  or  have  de 
served  it  so  eminently,  as  did  Judge  Woodbury.  At 
the  age  of  twenty-seven,  he  was  appointed  to  the  bench 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  state,  on  the  earnest  rec 
ommendation  of  old  General  Pierce.  The  opponents 
of  the  measure  ridiculed  him  as  the  "  baby  judge ; " 
but  his  conduct  in  that  high  office  showed  the  presci 
ent  judgment  of  the  friend  who  had  known  him  from 
a  child,  and  had  seen  in  his  young  manhood  already 
the  wisdom  of  ripened  age.  It  was  some  years  after 
wards  when  Franklin  Pierce  entered  the  office  of 
Judge  Woodbury  as  a  student.  In  the  interval,  the 
judge  had  been  elected  governor,  and,  after  a  term  of 
office  that  thoroughly  tested  the  integrity  of  his  demo 
cratic  principles,  had  lost  his  second  election,  and  re 
turned  to  the  profession  of  the  law. 

The  last  two  years  of  Pierce's  preparatory  studies 
were  spent  at  the  law  school  of  Northampton,  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  in  the  office  of  Judge  Parker  at  Am- 
herst.  In  1827,  being  admitted  to  the  bar,  he  began 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  363 

the  practice  of  his  profession  at  Hillsborough.  It  is 
an  interesting  fact,  considered  in  reference  to  his  sub 
sequent  splendid  career  as  an  advocate,  that  he  did  not, 
at  the  outset,  give  promise  of  distinguished  success. 
His  first  case  was  a  failure,  and  perhaps  a  somewhat 
marked  one.  But  it  is  remembered  that  this  defeat, 
however  mortifying  at  the  moment,  did  but  serve  to 
make  him  aware  of  the  latent  resources  of  his  mind, 
the  full  command  of  which  he  was  far  from  having 
yet  attained.  To  a  friend,  an  older  practitioner,  who 
addressed  him  with  some  expression  of  condolence  and 
encouragement,  Pierce  replied,  —  and  it  was  a  kind  of 
self-assertion  which  no  triumph  would  have  drawn  out, 

« I  do  not  need  that.     I  will  try  nine  hundred  and 

ninety-nine  cases,  if  clients  will  continue  to  trust  me, 
and,  if  I  fail  just  as  I  have  to-day,  will  try  the  thou 
sandth.  I  shall  live  to  argue  cases  in  this  court  house 
in  a  manner  that  will  mortify  neither  myself  nor  my 
friends."  It  is  in  such  moments  of  defeat  that  charac 
ter  and  ability  are  most  fairly  tested ;  they  would  irre 
mediably  crush  a  youth  devoid  of  real  energy,  and,  be 
ing  neither  more  nor  less  than  his  just  desert,  would 
be  accepted  as  such.  But  a  failure  of  this  kind  serves 
an  opposite  purpose  to  a  mind  in  which  the  strongest 
and  richest  qualities  lie  deep,  and,  from  their  very  size 
and  mass,  cannot  at  once  be  rendered  available.  It  pro 
vokes  an  innate  self-confidence,  while,  at  the  same  time, 
it  sternly  indicates  the  sedulous  cultivation,  the  earnest 
effort,  the  toil,  the  agony,  which  are  the  conditions  of 
ultimate  success.  It  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  best  modes 
of  discipline  that  experience  can  administer,  and  may 
reasonably  be  counted  a  fortunate  event  in  the  life  of 
a  young  man  vigorous  enough  to  overcome  the  mo 
mentary  depression. 


364  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

Pierce's  distinction  at  the  bar,  however,  did  not  im 
mediately  follow;  nor  did  he  acquire  what  we  may 
designate  as  positive  eminence  until  some  years  after 
this  period.  The  enticements  of  political  life  —  so 
especially  fascinating  to  a  young  lawyer,  but  so  irreg 
ular  in  its  tendencies,  and  so  inimical  to  steady  pro 
fessional  labor —  had  begun  to  operate  upon  him.  His 
father's  prominent  position  in  the  politics  of  the  state 
made  it  almost  impossible  that  the  son  should  stand 
aloof.  In  1827,  the  same  year  when  Franklin  began 
the  practice  of  the  law,  General  Benjamin  Pierce  had 
been  elected  governor  of  New  Hampshire.  He  was 
defeated  in  the  election  of  1828,  but  was  again  suc 
cessful  in  that  of  the  subsequent  year.  During  these 
years,  the  contest  for  the  presidency  had  been  fought 
with  a  fervor  that  drew  almost  everybody  into  it,  on 
one  side  or  the  other,  and  had  terminated  in  the  tri 
umph  of  Andrew  Jackson.  Franklin  Pierce,  in  ad 
vance  of  his  father's  decision,  though  not  in  opposition 
to  it,  had  declared  himself  for  the  illustrious  man 
whose  military  renown  was  destined  to  be  thrown  into 
the  shade  by  a  civil  administration,  the  most  splendid 
and  powerful  that  ever  adorned  the  annals  of  our  coun 
try.  I  love  to  record  of  the  subject  of  this  memoir 
that  his  first  political  faith  was  pledged  to  that  great 
leader  of  the  democracy. 

I  remember  meeting  Pierce  about  this  period,  and 
catching  from  him  some  faint  reflection  of  the  zeal 
with  which  he  was  now  stepping  into  the  political 
arena.  My  sympathies  and  opinions,  it  is  true,  —  so 
far  as  I  had  any  in  public  affairs,  —  had,  from  the 
first,  been  enlisted  on  the  same  side  with  his  own. 
But  I  was  now  made  strongly  sensible  of  an  increased 
development  of  my  friend's  mind,  by  means  of  which 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  365 

he  possessed  a  vastly  greater  power  than  heretofore 
over  the  minds  with  which  he  came  in  contact.  This 
progressive  growth  has  continued  to  be  one  of  his 
remarkable  characteristics.  Of  most  men  you  early 
know  the  mental  gauge  and  measurement,  and  do  not 
subsequently  have  much  occasion  to  change  it.  Not 
so  with  Pierce :  his  tendency  was  not  merely  high,  but 
towards  a  point  which  rose  higher  and  higher,  as  the 
aspirant  tended  upward.  Since  we  parted,  studious 
days  had  educated  him ;  life,  too,  and  his  own  exer 
tions  in  it,  and  his  native  habit  of  close  and  accurate 
observation,  had  likewise  begun  to  educate  him. 

The  town  of  Hillsborough,  in  1829,  gave  Franklin 
Pierce  his  first  public  honor,  by  electing  him  its  rep 
resentative  in  the  legislature  of  the  state.  His  whole 
service  in  that  body  comprised  four  years,  in  the  two 
latter  of  which  he  was  elected  Speaker  by  a  vote  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty-five  against  fifty-eight  for  other 
candidates.  This  overpowering  majority  evinced  the 
confidence  which  his  character  inspired,  and  which, 
during  his  whole  career,  it  has  invariably  commanded, 
in  advance  of  what  might  be  termed  positive  proof, 
although  the  result  has  never  failed  to  justify  it.  I 
still  recollect  his  description  of  the  feelings  with  which 
he  entered  on  his  arduous  duties  —  the  feverish  night 
that  preceded  his  taking  the  chair  —  the  doubt,  the 
struggle  with  himself  —  all  ending  in  perfect  calmness, 
full  self-possession,  and  free  power  of  action  when  the 
crisis  actually  came. 

He  had  all  the  natural  gifts  that  adapted  him  for 
the  post ;  courtesy,  firmness,  quickness  and  accuracy 
of  judgment,  and  a  clearness  of  mental  perception 
that  brought  its  own  regularity  into  the  scene  of  con 
fused  and  entangled  debate  ;  and  to  these  qualities  he 


366  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

added  whatever  was  to  be  attained  by  laborious  study 
of  parliamentary  rules.  His  merit  as  a  presiding  offi 
cer  was  universally  acknowledged.  It  is  rare  that  a 
man  combines  so  much  impulse  with  so  great  a  power 
of  regulating  the  impulses  of  himself  and  others  as 
Franklin  Pierce.  The  faculty,  here  exercised  and  im 
proved,  of  controlling  an  assembly  while  agitated  by 
tumultuous  controversy,  was  afterwards  called  into 
play  upon  a  higher  field  ;  for,  during  his  congressional 
service,  Pierce  was  often  summoned  to  preside  in  com 
mittee  of  the  whole,  when  a  turbulent  debate  was  ex 
pected  to  demand  peculiar  energy  in  the  chair. 

He  was  elected  a  member  of  Congress  in  1833,  be 
ing  young  for  the  station,  as  he  has  always  been  for 
every  public  station  that  he  has  filled.  A  different 
kind  of  man  —  a  man  conscious  that  accident  alone 
had  elevated  him,  and  therefore  nervously  anxious  to 
prove  himself  equal  to  his  fortunes  —  would  thus  have 
been  impelled  to  spasmodic  efforts.  He  would  have 
thrust  himself  forward  in  debate,  taking  the  word  out 
of  the  mouths  of  renowned  orators,  and  thereby  win 
ning  notoriety,  as  at  least  the  glittering  counterfeit  of 
true  celebrity.  Had  Pierce,  with  his  genuine  ability, 
practised  this  course  ;  had  he  possessed  even  an  ordi 
nary  love  of  display,  and  had  he  acted  upon  it  with  his 
inherent  tact  and  skill,  taking  advantage  of  fair  occa 
sions  to  prove  the  power  and  substance  that  were  in 
him,  it  would  greatly  have  facilitated  the  task  of  his 
biographer. 

To  aim  at  personal  distinction,  however,  as  an  object 
independent  of  the  public  service,  would  have  been 
contrary  to  all  the  foregone  and  subsequent  manifes 
tations  of  his  life.  He  was  never  wanting  to  the  occa 
sion  ;  but  he  waited  for  the  occasion  to  bring  him  in- 


LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  367 

evitably  forward.  When  he  spoke,  it  was  not  only 
because  he  was  fully  master  of  the  subject,  but  be 
cause  the  exigency  demanded  him,  and  because  no 
other  and  older  man  could  perform  the  same  duty  as 
well  as  himself.  Of  the  copious  eloquence  —  and 
some  of  it,  no  doubt,  of  a  high  order  —  which  Bun 
combe  has  called  forth,  not  a  paragraph,  nor  a  period, 
is  attributable  to  Franklin  Pierce.  He  had  no  need 
of  these  devices  to  fortify  his  constituents  in  their 
high  opinion  of  him ;  nor  did  he  fail  to  perceive  that 
such  was  not  the  method  to  acquire  real  weight  in  the 
body  of  which  he  was  a  member.  In  truth,  he  has 
no  fluency  of  words,  except  when  an  earnest  meaning 
and  purpose  supply  their  own  expression.  Every  one 
of  his  speeches  in  Congress,  and,  we  may  say,  in  every 
other  hall  of  oratory,  or  on  any  stump  that  he  may 
have  mounted,  was  drawn  forth  by  the  perception  that 
it  wa's  needed,  was  directed  to  a  full  exposition  of  the 
subject,  and  (rarest  of  all)  was  limited  by  what  he 
really  had  to  say.  Even  the  graces  of  the  orator  were 
never  elaborated,  never  assumed  for  their  own  sake, 
but  were  legitimately  derived  from  the  force  of  his 
conceptions,  and  from  the  impulsive  warmth  which 
accompanies  the  glow  of  thought.  Owing  to  these 
peculiarities,  —  for  such,  unfortunately,  they  may  be 
termed,  in  reference  to  what  are  usually  the  character 
istics  of  a  legislative  career,  —  his  position  before  the 
country  was  less  conspicuous  than  that  of  many  men 
who  could  claim  nothing  like  Pierce's  actual  influence 
in  the  national  councils.  His  speeches,  in  their  mus 
cular  texture  and  close  grasp  of  their  subject,  resem 
bled  the  brief  but  pregnant  arguments  and  expositions 
of  the  sages  of  the  Continental  Congress,  rather  than 
the  immeasurable  harangues  which  are  now  the  order 
of  the  day. 


368  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

His  congressional  life,  though  it  made  comparatively 
so  little  show,  was  full  of  labor,  directed  to  substantial 
objects.  He  was  a  member  of  the  judiciary  and  other 
important  committees  ;  and  the  drudgery  of  the  com 
mittee  room,  where  so  much  of  the  real  public  busi 
ness  of  the  country  is  transacted,  fell  in  large  meas 
ure  to  his  lot.  Thus,  even  as  a  legislator,  he  may  be 
said  to  have  been  a  man  of  deeds,  not  words  ;  and 
when  he  spoke  upon  any  subject  with  which  his  duty, 
as  chairman  or  member  of  a  committee,  had  brought 
him  in  relation,  his  words  had  the  weight  of  deeds, 
from  the  meaning,  the  directness,  and  the  truth,  that 
he  conveyed  into  them.  His  merits  made  themselves 
known  and  felt  in  the  sphere  where  they  were  exer 
cised  ;  and  he  was  early  appreciated  by  one*  who  sel 
dom  erred  in  his  estimate  of  men,  whether  in  their 
moral  or  intellectual  aspect.  His  intercourse  with 
President  Jackson  was  frequent  and  free,  and  marked 
by  friendly  regard  on  the  part  of  the  latter.  In  the 
stormiest  periods  of  his  administration,  Pierce  came 
frankly  to  his  aid.  The  confidence  then  established 
was  never  lost ;  and  when  Jackson  was  on  his  death 
bed,  being  visited  by  a  gentleman  from  the  North 
(himself  formerly  a  democratic  member  of  Congress), 
the  old  hero  spoke  with  energy  of  Franklin  Pierce's 
ability  and  patriotism,  and  remarked,  as  with  pro 
phetic  foresight  of  his  young  friend's  destiny,  that 
"  the  interests  of  the  country  would  be  safe  in  such 
hands." 

One  of  President  Jackson's  measures,  which  had 
Pierce's  approval  and  support,  was  his  veto  of  the 
Maysville  Koad  Bill.  This  bill  was  part  of  a  system 
of  vast  public  works,  principally  railroads  and  canals, 
which  it  was  proposed  to  undertake  at  the  expense  of 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  369 

the  national  treasury  —  a  policy  not  then  of  recent 
origin,  but  which  had  been  fostered  by  John  Quincy 
Adams,  and  had  attained  a  gigantic  growth  at  the 
close  of  his  presidency.  The  estimate  of  works  under 
taken  or  projected,  at  the  commencement  of  Jackson's 
administration,  amounted  to  considerably  more  than 
a  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  The  expenditure  of 
this  enormous  sum,  and  doubtless  other  incalculable 
amounts,  in  progressive  increase,  was  to  be  for  pur 
poses  often  of  unascertained  utility,  and  was  to  pass 
through  the  agents  and  officers  of  the  federal  gov 
ernment  —  a  means  of  political  corruption  not  safely 
to  be  trusted  even  in  the  purest  hands.  The  peril  to 
the  individuality  of  the  states,  from  a  system  tending 
so  directly  to  consolidate  the  powers  of  government 
towards  a  common  centre,  was  obvious.  The  result 
might  have  been,  with  the  lapse  of  time  and  the  in 
creased  activity  of  the  disease,  to  place  the  capital  of 
our  federative  Union  in  a  position  resembling  that  of 
imperial  Rome,  where  each  once  independent  state 
was  a  subject  province,  and  all  the  highways  of  the 
world  were  said  to  meet  in  her  forum.  It  was  against 
this  system,  so  dangerous  to  liberty  and  to  public  and 
private  integrity,  that  Jackson  declared  war,  by  the 
famous  Maysville  veto. 

It  would  be  an  absurd  interpretation  of  Pierce's 
course,  in  regard  to  this  and  similar  measures,  to  sup 
pose  him  hostile  either  to  internal  or  coastwise  im 
provements,  so  far  as  they  may  legitimately  be  the 
business  of  the  general  government.  He  was  aware  of 
the  immense  importance  of  our  internal  commerce,  and 
was  ever  ready  to  vote  such  appropriations  as  might  be 
necessary  for  promoting  it,  when  asked  for  in  an  hon 
est  spirit,  and  at  points  where  they  were  really  needed. 

VOL.  xii.  24 


370  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

He  doubted,  indeed,  the  constitutional  power  of  Con 
gress  to  undertake,  by  building  roads  through  the  wil 
derness  or  opening  unfrequented  rivers,  to  create  com 
merce  where  it  did  not  yet  exist ;  but  he  never  denied 
or  questioned  the  right  and  duty  to  remove  obstruc 
tions  in  the  way  of  inland  trade,  and  to  afford  it  every 
facility,  when  the  nature  and  necessity  of  things  had 
brought  it  into  genuine  existence.  And  he  agreed 
with  the  best  and  wisest  statesmen  in  believing  that 
this  distinction  involved  the  true  principle  on  which 
legislation,  for  the  purpose  here  discussed,  should  pro 
ceed. 

While  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
he  delivered  a  forcible  speech  against  the  bill  author 
izing  appropriations  for  the  Military  Academy  at 
West  Point.  He  was  decidedly  opposed  to  that  insti 
tution  as  then  and  at  present  organized.  We  allude  to 
the  subject  in  illustration  of  the  generous  frankness 
with  which,  years  afterwards,  when  the  battle  smoke 
of  Mexico  had  baptized  him  also  a  soldier,  he  acknowl 
edged  himself  in  the  wrong,  and  bore  testimony  to  the 
brilliant  services  which  the  graduates  of  the  Academy, 
trained  to  soldiership  from  boyhood,  had  rendered  to 
their  country.  And  if  he  has  made  no  other  such  ac 
knowledgment  of  past  error,  committed  in  his  legisla 
tive  capacity,  it  is  but  fair  to  believe  that  it  is  because 
his  reason  and  conscience  accuse  him  of  no  other 
wrong. 

It  was  while  in  the  lower  house  of  Congress  that 
Franklin  Pierce  took  that  stand  on  the  slavery  ques 
tion  from  which  he  has  never  since  swerved  a  hair's 
breadth.  He  fully  recognized,  by  his  votes  and  by  his 
voice,  the  rights  pledged  to  the  South  by  the  Constitu 
tion.  This,  at  the  period  when  he  so  declared  himself, 


LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  371 

was  comparatively  an  easy  thing  to  do.  But  when  it 
became  more  difficult,  when  the  first  imperceptible 
movement  of  agitation  had  grown  to  be  almost  a  con 
vulsion,  his  course  was  still  the  same.  Nor  did  he 
ever  shun  the  obloquy  that  sometimes  threatened  to 
pursue  the  northern  man  who  dared  to  love  that  great 
and  sacred  reality  —  his  whole,  united,  native  country 
—  better  than  the  mistiness  of  a  philanthropic  theory. 
He  continued  in  the  House  of  Representatives  four 
years.  If,  at  this  period  of  his  life,  he  rendered  un 
obtrusive,  though  not  unimportant,  services  to  the  pub 
lic,  it  must  also  have  been  a  time  of  vast  intellectual 
advantage  to  himself.  Amidst  great  national  affairs, 
he  was  acquiring  the  best  of  all  educations  for  future 
eminence  and  leadership.  In  the  midst  of  statesmen, 
he  grew  to  be  a  statesman.  Studious,  as  all  his 
speeches  prove  him  to  be,  of  history,  he  beheld  it  de 
monstrating  itself  before  his  eyes.  As  regards  this 
sort  of  training,  much  of  its  good  or  ill  effect  depends 
on  the  natural  force  and  depth  of  the  man.  Many, 
no  doubt,  by  early  mixture  with  politics,  become  the 
mere  politicians  of  the  moment,  —  a  class  of  men  suffi 
ciently  abundant  among  us,  —  acquiring  only  a  knack 
and  cunning,  which  guide  them  tolerably  well  through 
immediate  difficulties,  without  instructing  them  in  the 
great  rules  of  higher  policy.  But  when  the  actual  ob 
servation  of  public  measures  goes  hand  in  hand  with 
study,  when  the  mind  is  capable  of  comparing  the 
present  with  its  analogies  in  the  past,  and  of  grasping 
the  principle  that  belongs  to  both,  this  is  to  have  his 
tory  for  a  living  tutor.  If  the  student  be  fit  for  such 
instruction,  he  will  be  seen  to  act  afterwards  with  the 
elevation  of  a  high  ideal,  and  with  the  expediency,  the 
sagacity,  the  instinct  of  what  is  fit  and  practicable, 


372  LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

which  make  the  advantage  of  the  man  of  actual  affairs 
over  the  mere  theorist. 

And  it  was  another  advantage  of  his  being  brought 
early  into  the  sphere  of  national  interests,  and  contin 
uing  there  for  a  series  of  years,  that  it  enabled  him  to 
overcome  any  narrow  and  sectional  prejudices.  With 
out  loving  New  England  less,  he  loved  the  broad  area 
of  the  country  more.  He  thus  retained  that  equal  sen 
timent  of  patriotism  for  the  whole  land  with  which  his 
father  had  imbued  him,  and  which  is  perhaps  apt  to  be 
impaired  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  come  late  to  the 
national  legislature,  after  long  training  in  the  narrower 
fields  of  the  separate  states.  His  sense  of  the  value 
of  the  Union,  which  had  been  taught  him  at  the  fire 
side,  from  earliest  infancy,  by  the  stories  of  patriotic 
valor  that  he  there  heard,  was  now  strengthened  by 
friendly  association  with  its  representatives  from  every 
quarter.  It  is  this  youthful  sentiment  of  Americanism, 
so  happily  developed  by  after  circumstances,  that  we 
see  operating  through  all  his  public  life,  and  making 
him  as  tender  of  what  he  considers  due  to  the  South 
as  of  the  rights  of  his  own  land  of  hills. 

Franklin  Pierce  had  scarcely  reached  the  legal  age 
for  such  elevation,  when,  in  1837,  he  was  elected  to 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  He  took  his  seat 
at  the  commencement  of  the  presidency  of  Mr.  Yan 
Buren.  Never  before  nor  since  has  the  Senate  been 
more  venerable  for  the  array  of  veteran  and  celebrated 
statesmen  than  at  that  time.  Calhoun,  Webster,  and 
Clay  had  lost  nothing  of  their  intellectual  might.  Ben- 
ton,  Silas  Wright,  Woodbury,  Buchanan,  and  Walker 
were  members ;  and  many  even  of  the  less  eminent 
names  were  such  as  have  gained  historic  place  —  men 
of  powerful  eloquence,  and  worthy  to  be  leaders  of  the 


LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  373 

respective  parties  which  they  espoused.  To  this  digni 
fied  body  (composed  of  individuals  some  of  whom  were 
older  in  political  experience  than  he  in  his  mortal  life) 
Pierce  came  as  the  youngest  member  of  the  Senate. 
With  his  usual  tact  and  exquisite  sense  of  propriety, 
he  saw  that  it  was  not  the  time  for  him  to  step  forward 
prominently  on  this  highest  theatre  in  the  land.  lie 
beheld  these  great  combatants  doing  battle  before  the 
eyes  of  the  nation,  and  engrossing  its  whole  regards. 
There  was  hardly  an  avenue  to  reputation  save  what 
was  occupied  by  one  or  another  of  those  gigantic  fig 
ures. 

Modes  of  public  service  remained,  however,  requir 
ing  high  ability,  but  with  which  few  men  of  competent 
endowments  would  have  been  content  to  occupy  them 
selves.  Pierce  had  already  demonstrated  the  possibil 
ity  of  obtaining  an  enviable  position  among  his  asso 
ciates,  without  the  windy  notoriety  which  a  member  of 
Congress  may  readily  manufacture  for  himself  by  the 
lavish  expenditure  of  breath  that  had  been  better 
spared.  In  the  more  elevated  field  of  the  Senate,  he 
pursued  the  same  course  as  while  a  representative,  and 
with  more  than  equal  results. 

Among  other  committees,  he  was  a  member  of  that 
upon  revolutionary  pensions.  Of  this  subject  he  made 
himself  thoroughly  master,  and  was  recognized  by  the 
Senate  as  an  unquestionable  authority.  In  1840,  in 
reference  to  several  bills  for  the  relief  of  claimants 
under  the  pension  law,  he  delivered  a  speech  which 
finely  illustrates  as  well  the  sympathies  as  the  justice 
of  the  man,  showing  how  vividly  he  could  feel,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  how  powerless  were  his  feelings  to 
turn  him  aside  from  the  strict  line  of  public  integrity. 
The  merits  and  sacrifices  of  the  people  of  the  Revolu- 


374  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

tion  have  never  been  stated  with  more  earnest  grati« 
tude  than  in  the  following  passage  :  — 

"  I  am  not  insensible,  Mr.  President,  of  the  advan 
tages  with  which  claims  of  this  character  always  come 
before  Congress.  They  are  supposed  to  be  based  on 
services  for  which  no  man  entertains  a  higher  estimate 
than  myself  —  services  beyond  all  praise,  and  above  all 
price.  But,  while  warm  and  glowing  with  the  glorious 
recollections  which  a  recurrence  to  that  period  of  our 
history  can  never  fail  to  awaken  ;  while  we  cherish 
with  emotions  of  pride,  reverence,  and  affection  the 
memory  of  those  brave  men  who  are  no  longer  with 
us  ;  while  we  provide,  with  a  liberal  hand,  for  such  as 
survive,  and  for  the  widows  of  the  deceased ;  while  we 
would  accord  to  the  heirs,  whether  in  the  second  or 
third  generation,  every  dollar  to  which  they  can  estab 
lish  a  just  claim,  —  I  trust  we  shall  not,  in  the  strong 
current  of  our  sympathies,  forget  what  becomes  us  as 
the  descendants  of  such  men.  They  would  teach  us  to 
legislate  upon  our  judgment,  upon  our  sober  sense  of 
right,  and  not  upon  our  impulses  or  our  sympathies. 
No,  sir ;  we  may  act  in  this  way,  if  we  choose,  when 
dispensing  our  own  means,  but  we  are  not  at  liberty  to 
do  it  when  dispensing  the  means  of  our  constituents. 

"  If  we  were  to  legislate  upon  our  sympathies  —  yet 
more  I  will  admit  —  if  we  were  to  yield  to  that  sense 
of  just  and  grateful  remuneration  which  presses  itself 
upon  every  man's  heart,  there  would  be  scarcely  a 
limit  for  our  bounty.  The  whole  exchequer  could  not 
answer  the  demand.  To  the  patriotism,  the  courage, 
and  the  sacrifices  of  the  people  of  that  day,  we  owe, 
under  Providence,  all  that  we  now  most  highly  prize, 
and  what  we  shall  ^transmit  to  our  children  as  the 
richest  legacy  they  can  inherit.  The  War  of  the  Rev- 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  375 

olution,  it  has  been  justly  remarked,  was  not  a  war  of 
armies  merely  —  it  was  the  war  of  nearly  a  whole  peo 
ple,  and  such  a  people  as  the  world  had  never  before 
seen,  in  a  death  struggle  for  liberty. 

"  The  losses,  sacrifices,  and  sufferings  of  that  period 
were  common  to  all  classes  and  conditions  of  life. 
Those  who  remained  at  home  suffered  hardly  less  than 
those  who  entered  upon  the  active  strife.  The  aged 
father  and  mother  underwent  not  less  than  the  son, 
who  would  have  been  the  comfort  and  stay  of  their  de 
clining  years,  now  called  to  perform  a  yet  higher  duty 
—  to  follow  the  standard  of  his  bleeding  country.  The 
young  mother,  with  her  helpless  children,  excites  not 
less  deeply  our  sympathies,  contending  with  want,  and 
dragging  out  years  of  weary  and  toilsome  days  and 
anxious  nights,  than  the  husband  in  the  field,  following 
the  fortunes  of  our  arms  without  the  common  habili 
ments  to  protect  his  person,  or  the  requisite  sustenance 
to  support  his  strength.  Sir,  I  never  think  of  that 
patient,  enduring,  self-sacrificing  army,  which  crossed 
the  Delaware  in  December,  1777,  marching  barefooted 
upon  frozen  ground  to  encounter  the  foe,  and  leaving 
bloody  footprints  for  miles  behind  them  —  I  never 
think  of  their  sufferings  during  that  terrible  winter 
without  involuntarily  inquiring,  Where  then  were  their 
families  ?  Who  lit  up  the  cheerful  fire  upon  their 
hearths  at  home?  Who  spoke  the  word  of  comfort 
and  encouragement?  Nay,  sir,  who  furnished  protec 
tion  from  the  rigors  of  winter,  and  brought  them  the 
necessary  means  of  subsistence  ? 

"The  true  and  simple  answer  to  these  questions 
would  disclose  an  amount  of  suffering  and  anguish, 
mental  and  physical,  such  as  juight  not  have  been 
found  in  the  ranks  of  the  armies  —  not  even  in  the 


376  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

severest  trial  of  that  fortitude  which  never  faltered, 
and  that  power  of  endurance  which  seemed  to  know 
no  limit.  All  this  no  man  feels  more  deeply  than  I 
do.  But  they  were  common  sacrifices  in  a  common 
cause,  ultimately  crowned  with  the  reward  of  liberty. 
They  have  an  everlasting  claim  upon  our  gratitude, 
and  are  destined,  as  I  trust,  by  their  heroic  example, 
to  exert  an  abiding  influence  upon  our  latest  pos 
terity." 

With  this  heartfelt  recognition  of  the  debt  of  grati 
tude  due  to  those  excellent  men,  the  senator  enters 
into  an  analysis  of  the  claims  presented,  and  proves 
them  to  be  void  of  justice.  The  whole  speech  is  a  good 
exponent  of  his  character ;  full  of  the  truest  sympathy," 
but,  above  all  things,  just,  and  not  to  be  misled,  on 
the  public  behalf,  by  those  impulses  that  would  be 
most  apt  to  sway  the  private  man.  The  mere  pecu 
niary  amount  saved  to  the  nation  by  his  scrutiny  into 
affairs  of  this  kind,  though  great,  was,  after  all,  but  a 
minor  consideration.  The  danger  lay  in  establishing 
a  corrupt  system,  and  placing  a  wrong  precedent  upon 
the  statute  book.  Instances  might  be  adduced,  on  the 
other  hand,  which  show  him  not  less  scrupulous  of  the 
just  rights  of  the  claimants  than  careful  of  the  public 
interests. 

Another  subject  upon  which  he  came  forward  was 
the  military  establishment  and  the  natural  defences  of 
the  country.  In  looking  through  the  columns  of  the 
"  Congressional  Globe,"  we  find  abundant  evidences 
of  Senator  Pierce's  laborious  and  unostentatious  dis 
charge  of  his  duties  —  reports  of  committees,  brief  re 
marks,  and,  here  and  there,  a  longer  speech,  always 
full  of  matter,  and  evincing  a  thoroughly  -  digested 
knowledge  of  the  subject.  Not  having  been  written 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  877 

out  by  himself,  however,  these  speeches  are  no  fair 
specimens  of  his  oratory,  except  as  regards  the  train 
of  argument  and  substantial  thought ;  and  adhering 
very  closely  to  the  business  in  hand,  they  seldom  pre 
sent  passages  that  could  be  quoted,  without  tearing 
them  forcibly,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  context,  and  thus 
mangling  the  fragments  which  we  might  offer  to  the 
reader.  As  we  have  already  remarked,  he  seems,  as 
a  debater,  to  revive  the  old  type  of  the  Revolutionary 
Congress,  or  to  bring  back  the  noble  days  of  the  Long 
Parliament  of  England,  before  eloquence  had  become 
what  it  is  now,  a  knack,  and  a  thing  valued  for  itself. 
Like  those  strenuous  orators,  he  speaks  with  the  ear 
nestness  of  honest  conviction,  and  out  of  the  fervor  of 
his  heart,  and  because  the  occasion  and  his  deep  sense 
of  it  constrain  him. 

By  the  defeat  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  in  the  presidential 
election  of  1840,  the  administration  of  government 
was  transferred,  for  the  first  time  in  twelve  years,  to 
the  Whigs.  An  extra  session  of  Congress  was  sum 
moned  to  assemble  in  June,  1841,  by  President  Harri 
son,  who,  however,  died  before  it  came  together.  At 
this  extra  session,  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  whig 
party,  under  the  leadership  of  Henry  Clay,  to  over 
throw  all  the  great  measures  which  the  successive 
democratic  administrations  had  established.  The  sub- 
treasury  was  to  be  demolished ;  a  national  bank  was  to 
be  incorporated ;  a  high  tariff  of  duties  was  to  be  im 
posed,  for  purposes  6i  protection  and  abundant  reve 
nue.  The  whig  administration  possessed  a  majority, 
both  in  the  Senate  and  the  House.  It  was  a  dark 
period  for  the  Democracy,  so  long  unaccustomed  to  de 
feat,  and  now  beholding  all  that  they  had  won  for  the 
cause  of  national  progress,  after  the  arduous  struggle 
of  so  many  years,  apparently  about  to  be  swept  away. 


378  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

The  sterling  influence  which  Franklin  Pierce  now 
exercised  is  well  described  in  the  following  remarks  of 
the  Hon.  A.  O.  P.  Nicholson :  — 

"  The  power  of  an  organized  minority  was  never 
more  clearly  exhibited  than  in  this  contest.  The  demo 
cratic  senators  acted  in  strict  concert,  meeting  night 
after  night  for  consultation,  arranging  their  plan  of 
battle,  selecting  their  champions  for  the  coming  day, 
assigning  to  each  man  his  proper  duty,  and  looking 
carefully  to  the  popular  judgment  for  a  final  victory. 
In  these  consultations,  no  man's  voice  was  heard  with 
more  profound  respect  than  that  of  Franklin  Pierce. 
His  counsels  were  characterized  by  so  thorough  a 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  by  so  much  solid  com 
mon  sense,  by  such  devotion  to  democratic  principles, 
that,  although  among  the  youngest  of  the  senators,  it 
was  deemed  important  that  all  their  conclusions  should 
be  submitted  to  his  sanction. 

"Although  known  to  be  ardent  in  his  temperament, 
he  was  also  known  to  act  with  prudence  and  caution. 
His  impetuosity  in  debate  was  only  the  result  of  the 
deep  convictions  which  controlled  his  mind.  He  en 
joyed  the  unbounded  confidence  of  Calhoun,  Buchan 
an,  Wright,  Woodbury,  Walker,  King,  Benton,  and 
indeed  of  the  entire  democratic  portion  of  the  Senate. 
When  he  rose  in  the  Senate  or  in  the  committee  room, 
he  was  heard  with  the  profoundest  attention ;  and 
again  and  again  was  he  greeted  by  these  veteran  Dem 
ocrats  as  one  of  our  ablest  champions.  His  speeches, 
during  this  session,  will  compare  with  those  of  any 
other  senator.  If  it  be  asked  why  he  did  not  receive 
higher  distinction,  I  answer,  that  such  men  as  Calhoun, 
Wright,  Buchanan,  and  Woodbury  were  the  acknowl 
edged  leaders  of  the  Democracy.  The  eyes  of  the  na- 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  379 

tion  were  on  them.  The  hopes  of  their  party  were 
reposed  in  them.  The  brightness  of  these  luminaries 
was  too  great  to  allow  the  brilliancy  of  so  young  a 
man  to  attract  especial  attention.  But  ask  any  one  of 
these  veterans  how  Franklin  Pierce  ranked  in  the 
Senate,  and  he  will  tell  you,  that,  to  stand  in  the  front 
rank  for  talents,  eloquence,  and  statesmanship,  he  only 
lacked  a  few  more  years." 

In  the  course  of  this  session  he  made  a  very  power 
ful  speech  in  favor  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  resolution,  call 
ing  on  the  President  to  furnish  the  names  of  persons 
removed  from  office  since  the  4th  of  March,  1841. 
The  Whigs,  in  1840,  as  in  the  subsequent  canvass  of 
1848,  had  professed  a  purpose  to  abolish  the  system  of 
official  removals  on  account  of  political  opinion,  but, 
immediately  on  coming  into  power,  had  commenced  a 
proscription  infinitely  beyond  the  example  of  the  dem 
ocratic  party.  This  course,  with  an  army  of  office 
seekers  besieging  the  departments,  was  unquestiona 
bly  difficult  to  avoid,  and  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  not 
desirable  to  be  avoided.  But  it  was  rendered  astound 
ing  by  the  sturdy  effrontry  with  which  the  gentlemen 
in  power  denied  that  their  present  practice  had  falsi 
fied  any  of  their  past  professions.  A  few  of  the  clos 
ing  paragraphs  of  Senator  Pierce's  highly  effective 
speech,  being  more  easily  separable  than  the  rest,  may 
here  be  cited. 

"  One  word  more,  and  I  leave  this  subject,  —  a  pain 
ful  one  to  me,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  The 
senator  from  North  Carolina,  in  the  course  of  his  re 
marks  the  other  day,  asked, '  Do  gentlemen  expect  that 
their  friends  are  to  be  retained  in  office  against  the 
will  of  the  nation?  Are  they  so  unreasonable  as  to 
expect  what  the  circumstances  and  the  necessity  of  the 


380  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

case  forbid  ?  '  What  our  expectations  were  is  not  the 
question  now ;  but  what  were  your  pledges  and  prom 
ises  before  the  people.  On  a  previous  occasion,  the 
distinguished  senator  from  Kentucky  made  a  similar 
remark :  <-An  ungracious  task,  but  the  nation  de 
mands  it!'  Sir,  this  demand  of  the  nation,  —  this 
plea  of  STATE  NECESSITY,  —  let  me  tell  gentlemen, 
is  as  old  as  the  history  of  wrong  and  oppression.  It 
has  been  the  standing  plea,  the  never-failing  resort  of 
despotism. 

"  The  great  Julius  found  it  a  convenient  plea  when 
he  restored  the  dignity  of  the  Roman  Senate,  but  de 
stroyed  its  independence.  It  gave  countenance  to  and 
justified  all  the  atrocities  of  the  Inquisition  in  Spain. 
It  forced  out  the  stifled  groans  that  issued  from  the 
Black  Hole  of  Calcutta.  It  was  written  in  tears  upon 
the  Bridge  of  Sighs  in  Venice,  and  pointed  to  those 
dark  recesses  upon  whose  gloomy  thresholds  there  wras 
never  seen  a  returning  footprint. 

"  It  was  the  plea  of  the  austere  and  ambitious  Straf- 
ford,  in  the  days  of  Charles  I.  It  filled  the  Bastile  of 
France,  and  lent  its  sanction  to  the  terrible  atrocities 
perpetrated  there.  It  was  this  plea  that  snatched  the 
mild,  eloquent,  and  patriotic  Camille  Desmoulins  from 
his  young  and  beautiful  wife,  and  hurried  him  to  the 
guillotine  with  thousands  of  others  equally  unoffending 
and  innocent.  It  was  upon  this  plea  that  the  greatest 
of  generals,  if  not  men,  —  you  cannot  mistake  me,  — 
I  mean  him,  the  presence  of  whose  very  ashes  within 
the  last  few  months  sufficed  to  stir  the  hearts  of  a 
continent,  —  it  was  upon  this  plea  that  he  abjured 
the  noble  wife  who  had  thrown  light  and  gladness 
around  his  humbler  days,  and,  by  her  own  lofty  ener 
gies  and  high  intellect,  had  encouraged  his  aspira- 


LIFE    OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  381 

tions.  It  was  upon  this  plea  that  he  committed  that 
worst  and  most  fatal  act  of  his  eventful  life.  Upon 
this,  too,  he  drew  around  his  person  the  imperial  pur 
ple.  It  has  in  all  times,  and  in  every  age,  been  the 
foe  of  liberty  and  the  indispensable  stay  of  usurpa 
tion. 

"  Where  were  the  chains  of  despotism  ever  thrown 
around  the  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press  but 
on  this  plea  of  STATE  NECESSITY  ?  Let  the  spirit  of 
Charles  X.  and  of  his  ministers  answer. 

"  It  is  cold,  selfish,  heartless,  and  has  always  been 
regardless  of  age,  sex,  condition,  services,  or  any  of 
the  incidents  of  life  that  appeal  to  patriotism  or  hu 
manity.  Wherever  its  authority  has  been  acknowl 
edged,  it  has  assailed  men  who  stood  by  their  country 
when  she  needed  strong  arms  and  bold  hearts,  and  has 
assailed  them  when,  maimed  and  disabled  in  her  ser 
vice,  they  could  no  longer  brandish  a  weapon  in  her 
defence.  It  has  afflicted  the  feeble  and  dependent 
wife  for  the  imaginary  faults  of  the  husband.  It 
has  stricken  down  Innocence  in  its  beauty,  Youth  in 
its  freshness,  Manhood  in  its  vigor,  and  Age  in  its  fee 
bleness  and  decrepitude.  Whatever  other  plea  or  apol 
ogy  may  be  set  up  for  the  sweeping,  ruthless  exercise 
of  this  civil  guillotine  at  the  present  day,  in  the  name 
of  LIBERTY  let  us  be  spared  this  fearful  one  of  STATE 
NECESSITY,  in  this  early  age  of  the  Republic,  upon  the 
floor  of  the  American  Senate,  in  the  face  of  a  people 
yet  free !  " 

In  June,  1842,  he  signified  his  purpose  of  retiring 
from  the  Senate. 

It  was  now  more  than  sixteen  years  since  the  author 
of  this  sketch  had  been  accustomed  to  meet  Frank 
Pierce  (that  familiar  name,  which  the  nation  is  adopt- 


382  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

ing  as  one  of  its  household  words)  in  habits  of  daily 
intercourse.  Our  modes  of  life  had  since  been  as  dif 
ferent  as  could  well  be  imagined ;  our  culture  and  la 
bor  were  entirely  unlike ;  there  was  hardly  a  single 
object  or  aspiration  in  common  between  us.  Still  we 
had  occasionally  met,  and  always  on  the  old  ground  of 
friendly  confidence.  There  were  sympathies  that  had 
not  been  suffered  to  die  out.  Had  we  lived  more  con 
stantly  together,  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  relation 
might  have  been  changed  by  the  various  accidents  and 
attritions  of  life  ;  but  having  no  mutual  events,  and 
few  mutual  interests,  the  tie  of  early  friendship  re 
mained  the  same  as  when  we  parted.  The  modifica 
tions  which  I  saw  in  his  character  were  those  of  growth 
and  development ;  new  qualities  came  out,  or  displayed 
themselves  more  prominently,  but  always  in  harmony 
with  those  heretofore  known.  Always  I  was  sensible 
of  progress  in  him;  a  characteristic  —  as,  I  believe, 
has  been  said  in  the  foregoing  pages  —  more  perceptible 
in  Franklin  Pierce  than  in  any  other  person  with  whom 
I  have  been  acquainted.  He  widened,  deepened,  rose 
to  a  higher  point,  and  thus  ever  made  himself  equal  to 
the  ever-heightening  occasion.  This  peculiarity  of  in 
tellectual  growth,  continued  beyond  the  ordinary  pe 
riod,  has  its  analogy  in  his  physical  constitution  —  it 
being  a  fact  that  he  continued  to  grow  in  stature  be 
tween  his  twenty-first  and  twenty-fifth  years. 

He  had  not  met  with  that  misfortune,  which,  it  is 
to  be  feared,  befalls  many  men  who  throw  their  ardor 
into  politics.  The  pursuit  had  taken  nothing  from 
the  frankness  of  his  nature  ;  now,  as  ever,  he  used  di 
rect  means  to  gain  honorable  ends ;  and  his  subtlety 
• — for,  after  all,  his  heart  and  purpose  were  not  such 
as  he  that  runs  may  read  —  had  the  depth  of  wisdom, 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  383 

and  never  any  quality  of  cunning.  In  great  part,  this 
undeteriorated  manhood  was  due  to  his  original  nobil 
ity  of  nature.  Yet  it  may  not  be  unjust  to  attribute 
it,  in  some  degree,  to  the  singular  good  fortune  of  his 
life.  He  had  never,  in  all  his  career,  found  it  neces 
sary  to  stoop.  Office  had  sought  him  ;  he  had  not 
begged  it,  nqr  manoeuvred  for  it,  nor  crept  towards  it 
—  arts  which  too  frequently  bring  a  man,  morally 
bowed  and  degraded,  to  a  position  which  should  be 
one  of  dignity,  but  in  which  he  will  vainly  essay  to 
stand  upright. 

In  our  earlier  meetings,  after  Pierce  had  begun  to 
come  forward  in  public  life,  I  could  discern  that  his 
ambition  was  aroused.  He  felt  a  young  man's  enjoy 
ment  of  success,  so  early  and  so  distinguished.  But 
as  years  went  on,  such  motives  seemed  to  be  less  in 
fluential  with  him.  He  was  cured  of  ambition,  as,  one 
after  another,  its  objects  came  to  him  unsought.  His 
domestic  position,  likewise,  had  contributed  to  direct 
his  tastes  and  wishes  towards  the  pursuits  of  private 
life.  In  1834  he  had  married  Jane  Means,  a  daugh 
ter  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Appleton,  a  former  president  of 
Bowdoin  College.  Three  sons,  the  first  of  whom  died 
in  early  infancy,  were  born  to  him  ;  and,  having  hith 
erto  been  kept  poor  by  his  public  service,  he  no  doubt 
became  sensible  of  the  expediency  of  making  some 
provision  for  the  future.  Such,  it  may  be  presumed, 
were  the  considerations  that  induced  his  resignation 
of  the  senatorship,  greatly  to  the  regret  of  all  parties. 
The  senators  gathered  around  him,  as  he  was  about  to 
quit  the  chamber;  political  opponents  took  leave  of 
him  as  of  a  personal  friend ;  and  no  departing  mem 
ber  has  ever  retired  from  that  dignified  body  amid 
warmer  wishes  for  his  happiness  than  those  that  at 
tended  Franklin  Pierce. 


384  LIFE    OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

His  father  had  died  three  years  before,  in  1839,  at 
the  mansion  which  he  built,  after  the  original  log- 
cabin  grew  too  narrow  for  his  rising  family  and  for 
tunes.  The  mansion  was  spacious,  as  the  liberal  hos 
pitality  of  the  occupant  required,  and  stood  on  a  little 
eminence,  surrounded  by  verdure  and  abundance,  and 
a  happy  population,  where,  half  a  century  before,  the 
revolutionary  soldier  had  come  alone  into  the  wilder 
ness,  and  levelled  the  primeval  forest  trees.  After 
being  spared  to  behold  the  distinction  of  his  son,  he 
departed  this  life  at  the  age  of  eighty -one  years,  in 
perfect  peace,  and,  until  within  a  few  hours  of  his 
death,  in  the  full  possession  of  his  intellectual  powers. 
His  last  act  was  one  of  charity  to  a  poor  neighbor  —  a 
fitting  close  to  a  life  that  had  abounded  in  such  deeds. 
Governor  Pierce  was  a  man  of  admirable  qualities  — 
brave,  active,  public  -  spirited,  endowed  with  natural 
authority,  courteous  yet  simple  in  his  manners ;  and 
in  his  son  we  may  perceive  these  same  attributes, 
modified  and  softened  by  a  finer  texture  of  character, 
illuminated  by  higher  intellectual  culture,  and  polished 
by  a  larger  intercourse  with  the  world,  but  as  substan 
tial  and  sterling  as  in  the  good  old  patriot. 

Franklin  Pierce  had  removed  from  Hillsborough  in 
1838,  and  taken  up  his  residence  at  Concord,  the  capi 
tal  of  New  Hampshire.  On  this  occasion,  the  citizens 
of  his  native  town  invited  him  to  a  public  dinner,  in 
token  of  their  affection  and  respect.  In  accordance 
with  his  usual  taste,  he  gratefully  accepted  the  kindly 
sentiment,  but  declined  the  public  demonstration  of  it. 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  385 

CHAPTER  III. 

HIS    SUCCESS   AT    THE   BAR. 

FKANKLIN  PIERCE'S  earliest  effort  at  the  bar,  as  we 
have  already  observed,  was  an  unsuccessful  one  ;  but 
instead  of  discouraging  him,  the  failure  had  only 
served  to  awaken  the  consciousness  of  latent  power, 
and  the  resolution  to  bring  it  out.  Since  those  days, 
he  had  indeed  gained  reputation  as  a  lawyer.  So 
much,  however,  was  the  tenor  of  his  legal  life  broken 
up  by  the  months  of  public  service  subtracted  from 
each  year,  and  such  was  the  inevitable  tendency  of 
his  thoughts  towards  political  subjects,  that  he  could 
but  very  partially  avail  himself  of  the  opportunities  of 
professional  advancement.  But  on  retiring  from  the 
Senate,  he  appears  to  have  started  immediately  into 
full  practice.  Though  the  people  of  New  Hampshire 
already  knew  him  well,  yet  his  brilliant  achievements 
as  an  advocate  brought  him  more  into  their  view,  and 
into  closer  relations  with  them,  than  he  had  ever  be 
fore  been.  He  now  met  his  countrymen,  as  repre 
sented  in  the  jury  box,  face  to  face,  and  made  then* 
feel  what  manner  of  man  he  was.  Their  sentiment 
towards  him  soon  grew  to  be  nothing  short  of  enthu 
siasm  ;  love,  pride,  the  sense  of  brotherhood,  affec 
tionate  sympathy,  and  perfect  trust,  all  mingled  in  it. 
It  was  the  influence  of  a  great  heart  pervading  the 
general  heart,  and  throbbing  with  it  in  the  same  pulsa 
tion. 

It  has  never  been  the  writer's  good  fortune  to  listen 
to  one  of  Franklin  Pierce's  public  speeches,  whether 
at  the  bar  or  elsewhere  ;  nor,  by  diligent  inquiry,  has 

VOL.  xn.  25 


386  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

he  been  able  to  gain  a  very  definite  idea  of  the  mode 
in  which  he  produces  his  effects.  To  me,  therefore, 
his  forensic  displays  are  in  the  same  category  with 
those  of  Patrick  Henry,  or  any  other  orator  whose 
tongue,  beyond  the  memory  of  man,  has  mouldered 
into  dust.  His  power  results,  no  doubt,  in  great  meas 
ure,  from  the  earnestness  with  which  he  imbues  him 
self  with  the  conception  of  his  client's  cause  ;  inso 
much  that  he  makes  it  entirely  his  own,  and,  never 
undertaking  a  case  which  he  believes  to  be  unjust, 
contends  with  his  whole  heart  and  conscience,  as  well 
as  intellectual  force,  for  victory.  His  labor  in  the 
preparation  of  his  cases  is  said  to  be  unremitting; 
and  he  throws  himself  with  such  energy  into  a  trial  of 
importance  as  wholly  to  exhaust  his  strength. 

Few  lawyers,  probably,  have  been  interested  in  a 
wider  variety  of  business  than  he  ;  its  scope  compre 
hends  the  great  causes  where  immense  pecuniary  in 
terests  are  concerned  —  from  which,  however,  he  is 
always  ready  to  turn  aside,  to  defend  the  humble 
rights  of  the  poor  man,  or  give  his  protection  to  one 
unjustly  accused.  As  one  of  my  correspondents  ob 
serves,  "  When  an  applicant  has  interested  him  by  a 
recital  of  oppression,  fraud,  or  wrong,  General  Pierce 
never  investigates  the  man's  estate  before  engaging  in 
his  business  ;  neither  does  he  calculate  whose  path  he 
may  cross.  I  have  been  privy  to  several  instances  of 
the  noblest  independence  on  his  part,  in  pursuing,  to 
the  disrepute  of  those  who  stood  well  in  the  com 
munity,  the  weal  of  an  obscure  client  with  a  good 
cause." 

In  the  practice  of  the  law,  as  Pierce  pursued  it,  in 
one  or  another  of  the  court  houses  of  New  Hampshire, 
the  rumor  of  each  successive  struggle  and  success  re- 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  387 

sounded  over  the  rugged  hills,  and  perished  without  a 
record.  Those  mighty  efforts,  into  which  he  put  all 
his  strength,  before  a  county  court,  and  addressing  a 
jury  of  yeomen,  have  necessarily  been,  as  regards  the 
evanescent  memory  of  any  particular  trial,  like  the  elo 
quence  that  is  sometimes  poured  out  in  a  dream.  In 
other  spheres  of  action,  with  no  greater  expenditure 
of  mental  energy,  words  have  been  spoken  that  endure 
from  age  to  age  —  deeds  done  that  harden  into  history. 
But  this,  perhaps  the  most  earnest  portion  of  Franklin 
Pierce's  life,  has  left  few  materials  from  which  it  can 
be  written.  There  is  before  me  only  one  report  of  a 
case  in  which  he  was  engaged  —  the  defence  of  the 
Wentworths,  at  a  preliminary  examination,  on  a 
charge  of  murder.  His  speech  occupied  four  hours  in 
the  delivery,  and  handles  a  confused  medley  of  facts 
with  masterly  skill,  bringing  them  to  bear  one  upon 
another,  and  making  the  entire  mass,  as  it  were,  trans 
parent,  so  that  the  truth  may  be  seen  through  it.  The 
whole  hangs  together  too  closely  to  permit  the  quota 
tion  of  passages. 

The  writer  has  been  favored  with  communications 
from  two  individuals,  who  have  enjoyed  the  best  of 
opportunities  to  become  acquainted  with  General 
Pierce's  character  as  a  lawyer.  The  following  is  the 
graceful  and  generous  tribute  of  a  gentleman,  who,  of 
late,  more  frequently  than  any  other,  has  been  opposed 
to  him  at  the  bar :  — 

"  General  Pierce  cannot  be  said  to  have  commenced 
his  career  at  the  bar,  in  earnest,  until  after  his  resig 
nation  of  the  office  of  senator,  in  1842.  And  it  is  a 
convincing  proof  of  his  eminent  powers  that  he  at  once 
placed  himself  in  the  very  first  rank  at  a  bar  so  dis 
tinguished  for  ability  as  that  of  New  Hampshire.  It 


388  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

is  confessed  by  all,  who  have  the  means  of  knowledge 
and  judgment  on  this  subject,  that  in  no  state  of  the 
Union  are  causes  tried  with  more  industry  of  prepara 
tion,  skill,  perseverance,  energy,  or  vehement  effort  to 
succeed. 

"  During  much  of  this  time,  rny  practice  in  our 
courts  was  suspended ;  and  it  is  only  within  three  or 
four  years  that  I  have  had  opportunities  of  intimately 
knowing  his  powers  as  an  advocate,  by  being  associ 
ated  with  him  at  the  bar ;  and,  most  of  all,  of  appreci 
ating  and  feeling  that  power,  by  being  opposed  to  him 
in  the  trial  of  causes  before  juries.  Far  more  than 
any  other  man,  whom  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  meet, 
he  makes  himself  felt  by  one  who  tries  a  case  against 
him.  From  the  first,  he  impresses  on  his  opponent  a 
consciousness  of  the  necessity  of  a  deadly  struggle,  not 
only  in  order  to  win  the  victory,  but  to  avoid  defeat. 

"  His  vigilance  and  perseverance,  omitting  nothing 
in  the  preparation  and  introduction  of  testimony,  even 
to  the  minutest  details,  which  can  be  useful  to  his  cli 
ents  ;  his  watchful  attention,  seizing  on  every  weak 
point  in  the  opposite  case;  his  quickness  and  readi 
ness  ;  his  sound  and  excellent  judgment ;  his  keen  in- 
sight  into  character  and  motives,  his  almost  intuitive 
knowledge  of  men ;  his  ingenious  and  powerful  cross- 
examinations  ;  his  adroitness  in  turning  aside  trou 
blesome  testimony,  and  availing  himself  of  every 
favorable  point ;  his  quick  sense  of  the  ridiculous ; 
his  pathetic  appeals  to  the  feelings ;  his  sustained  elo 
quence,  and  remarkably  energetic  declamation,  —  all 
mark  him  for  a  4  leader.' 

"  From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  trial  of  a 
case,  nothing  with  him  is  neglected,  which  can  by  pos 
sibility  honorably  conduce  to  success.  His  manner  is 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  389 

always  respectful  and  deferential  to  the  court,  capti 
vating  to  the  jury,  and  calculated  to  conciliate  the 
good  will  even  of  those  who  would  be  otherwise  in 
different  spectators.  In  short,  he  plays  the  part  of  a 
successful  actor  ;  successful,  because  he  always  identi 
fies  himself  with  his  part,  and  in  him  it  is  not  acting. 

"  Perhaps,  as  would  be  expected  by  those  who  know 
his  generosity  of  heart,  and  his  scorn  of  everything 
like  oppression  or  extortion,  he  is  most  powerful  in  his 
indignant  denunciations  of  fraud  or  injustice,  and  his 
addresses  to  the  feelings  in  behalf  of  the  poor  and 
lowly,  and  the  sufferers  under  wrong.  I  remember  to 
have  heard  of  his  extraordinary  power  on  one  occasion, 
when  a  person,  who  had  offered  to  procure  arrears  of 
a  pension  for  revolutionary  services,  had  appropriated 
to  himself  a  most  unreasonable  share  of  the  money. 
General  Pierce  spoke  of  the  frequency  of  these  in 
stances,  and,  before  the  numerous  audience,  offered 
his  aid,  freely  and  gratuitously,  to  redress  the  wrongs 
of  any  widow  or  representative  of  a  revolutionary  offi 
cer  or  soldier  who  had  been  made  the  subject  of  such 
extortion. 

"  The  reply  of  the  poor  man,  in  the  anecdote  related 
by  Lord  Campbell  of  Harry  Erskine,  would  be  appli 
cable,  as  exhibiting  a  feeling  kindred  to  that  with 
which  General  Pierce  is  regarded  :  c  There  's  no  a  puir 
man  in  a'  Scotland  need  to  want  a  friend  or  fear  an 
enemy,  sae  lang  as  Harry  Erskine  lives  ! ' 

We  next  give  his  aspect  as  seen  from  the  bench,  in 
the  following  carefully  prepared  and  discriminating 
article,  from  the  chief  justice  of  New  Hampshire  :  — 

"  In  attempting  to  estimate  the  character  and  quali 
fications  of  Mr.  Pierce  as  a  lawyer  and  an  advocate, 
we  undertake  a  delicate,  but,  at  the  same  time,  an 


390  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

agreeable  task.  The  profession  of  the  law,  practised 
by  men  of  liberal  and  enlightened  minds,  and  un 
stained  by  the  sordidness  which  more  or  less  affects 
all  human  pursuits,  invariably  confers  honor  upon  and 
is  honored  by  its  followers.  An  integrity  above  suspi 
cion,  an  eloquence  alike  vigorous  and  persuasive,  and 
an  intuitive  sagacity  have  earned  for  Mr.  Pierce  the 
reputation  that  always  follows  them. 

"  The  last  case  of  paramount  importance  in  which 
he  was  engaged  as  counsel  was  that  of  Morrison  v. 
Philbrick,  tried  in  the  month  of  February,  1852,  at 
the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  for  the  county  of  Bel- 
knap.  There  was  on  both  sides  an  array  of  eminent 
professional  talent,  Messrs.  Pierce,  Bell,  and  Bellows 
appearing  for  the  defendant,  and  Messrs.  Atherton 
and  Whipple  for  the  plaintiff.  The  case  was  one  of 
almost  unequalled  interest  to  the  public  generally,  and 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  lying  around  the 
lower  part  of  Lake  Winnipiseogee.  A  company,  com 
monly  called  the  Lake  Company,  had  become  the  own 
ers  of  many  of  the  outlets  of  the  streams  supplying 
the  lake,  and  by  means  of  their  works  at  such  places, 
and  at  Union  Bridge,  a  few  miles  below,  were  enabled 
to  keep  back  the  waters  of  the  lake,  and  to  use  them 
as  occasion  should  require,  to  supply  the  mills  at  Low 
ell.  The  plaintiff  alleged  that  the  dam  at  Union 
Bridge  had  caused  the  water  to  rise  higher  than  was 
done  by  the  dam  that  existed  in  the  year  1828,  and 
that  he  was  essentially  injured  thereby.  The  case  had 
been  on  trial  nearly  seven  weeks.  Evidence  equivalent 
to  the  testimony  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  witnesses 
had  been  laid  before  the  jury.  Upon  this  immense 
mass  of  facts,  involving  a  great  number  of  issues,  Mr. 
Pierce  was  to  meet  his  most  formidable  opponent 


LIFE   OF  F  RAJS  KLIN  PIERCE.  391 

in  the  state,  Mr.  Atherton.  In  that  gentleman  are 
united  many  of  the  rarest  qualifications  of  an  advo 
cate.  Of  inimitable  self-possession;  with  a  coolness 
and  clearness  of  intellect  which  no  sudden  emergen 
cies  can  disturb ;  with  that  confidence  in  his  resources 
which  nothing  but  native  strength,  aided  by  the  most 
thorough  training,  can  bestow ;  with  a  felicity  and  fer 
tility  of  illustration,  the  result  alike  of  an  exquisite 
natural  taste  and  a  cultivation  of  those  studies  which 
refine  while  they  strengthen  the  mind  for  forensic  con 
tests,  —  Mr.  Atherton's  argument  was  listened  to  with 
an  earnestness  and  interest  which  showed  the  convic 
tion  of  his  audience  that  no  ordinary  man  was  address 
ing  them. 

"  No  one  who  witnessed  that  memorable  trial  will 
soon  forget  the  argument  of  Mr.  Pierce  on  that  occa 
sion.  He  was  the  counsel  for  the  defendant,  and  was 
therefore  to  precede  Mr.  Atherton.  He  was  to  ana 
lyze  and  unfold  to  the  jury  this  vast  body  of  evidence 
under  the  watchful  eyes  of  an  opponent  at  once  enter 
prising  and  cautious,  and  before  whom  it  was  neces 
sary  to  be  both  bold  and  skilful.  He  was  to  place 
himself  in  the  position  of  the  jury,  to  see  the  evidence 
as  they  would  be  likely  to  regard  it,  to  understand  the 
character  of  their  minds,  and  what  views  would  be  the 
most  likely  to  impress  them.  He  was  not  only  to  be 
familiar  with  his  own  case,  but  to  anticipate  that  of 
his  opponent,  and  answer  as  he  best  might  the  argu 
ment  of  the  counsel.  And  most  admirably  did  he  dis 
charge  the  duties  he  had  assumed  on  behalf  of  his 
client.  Eminently  graceful  and  attractive  in  his  man 
ner  at  all  times,  his  demeanor  was  then  precisely  what 
it  should  have  been,  showing  a  manly  confidence  in 
himself  and  his  case,  and  a  courteous  deference  to  the 


392  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

tribunal  he  was  addressing.  His  erect  and  manly 
figure,  his  easy  and  unembarrassed  air,  bespoke  the 
favorable  attention  of  his  audience.  His  earnest  de 
votion  to  his  cause,  his  deep  emotion,  evidently  sup 
pressed,  but  for  that  very  reason  all  the  more  interest 
ing,  diffused  themselves  like  electricity  through  his 
hearers.  And  when,  as  often  happened,  in  the  course 
of  his  argument,  his  clear  and  musical  accents  fell 
upon  the  ear  in  eloquent  and  pointed  sentences,  grati 
fying  the  taste  while  they  satisfied  the  reason,  no  man 
could  avoid  turning  to  his  neighbor,  and  expressing 
by  his  looks  that  pleasure  which  the  very  depth  of  his 
interest  forbade  him  to  express  in  words.  And  when 
the  long  trial  was  over,  every  one  remembered  with 
satisfaction  that  these  two  distinguished  gentlemen 
had  met  each  other  during  a  most  exciting  and  ex 
hausting  trial  of  seven  weeks,  and  that  no  unkind 
words,  or  captious  passages,  had  occurred  between 
them  to  diminish  their  mutual  respect,  or  that  in  which 
they  were  held  by  thair  fellow-citizens. 

"  In  the  above  remarks,  we  have  indicated  a  few  of 
Mr.  Pierce's  characteristics  as  an  advocate  ;  but  he 
possesses  other  endowments,  to  which  we  have  not  al 
luded.  In  the  first  place,  as  he  is  a  perfectly  fearless 
man,  so  he  is  a  perfectly  fearless  advocate  ;  and  true 
courage  is  as  necessary  to  the  civilian  as  to  the  sol 
dier,  and  smiles  and  frowns  Mr.  Pierce  disregards 
alike  in  the  undaunted  discharge  of  his  duty.  He 
never  fears  to  uphold  his  client,  however  unpopular 
his  cause  may  seem  to  be  for  the  moment.  It  is  this 
courage  which  kindles  his  eloquence,  inspires  his  con 
duct,  and  gives  direction  and  firmness  to  his  skill. 
This  it  is  which  impels  him  onward,  at  all  risks,  to  lay 
bare  every  '  mystery  of  iniquity  '  which  he  believes  is 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  393 

threatening  his  case.  He  does  not  ask  himself  whether 
his  opponent  be  not  a  man  of  wealth  and  influence,  of 
whom  it  might  be  for  his  interest  to  speak  with  care 
and  circumspection  ;  but  he  devotes  himself  with  a 
ready  zeal  to  his  cause,  careless  of  aught  but  how 
he  may  best  discharge  his  duty.  His  argumentative 
powers  are  of  the  highest  order.  He  never  takes  be 
fore  the  court  a  position  which  he  believes  untenable. 
He  has  a  quick  and  sure  perception  of  his  points,  and 
the  power  of  enforcing  them  by  apt  and  pertinent 
illustrations.  He  sees  the  relative  importance  and 
weight  of  different  views,  and  can  assign  to  each  its 
proper  place,  and  brings  forward  the  main  body  of  his 
reasoning  in  prominent  relief,  without  distracting  the 
Attention  by  unimportant  particulars.  And  above  all, 
he  has  the  good  sense,  so  rarely  shown  by  many,  to 
stop  when  he  has  said  all  that  is  necessary  for  the  elu 
cidation  of  his  subject.  With  a  proper  confidence  in 
his  own  perceptions,  he  states  his  views  so  pertinently 
and  in  such  precise  and  logical  terms,  that  they  can 
not  but  be  felt  and  appreciated.  He  never  mystifies ; 
he  never  attempts  to  pervert  words  from  their  proper 
and  legitimate  meaning,  to  answer  a  temporary  pur 
pose. 

"  His  demeanor  at  the  bar  may  be  pronounced  fault 
less.  His  courtesy  in  the  court  house,  like  his  cour 
tesy  elsewhere,  is  that  which  springs  from  self-respect 
and  from  a  kindly  heart,  disposing  its  owner  to  say 
and  do  kindly  things.  But  he  would  be  a  courageous 
man  who,  presuming  upon  the  affability  of  Mr.  Pierce's 
manner,  would  venture  a  second  time  to  attack  him ; 
for  he  would  long  remember  the  rebuke  that  followed 
his  first  attack.  There  is  a  ready  repartee  and  a  quick 
and  cutting  sarcasm  in  his  manner  when  he  chooses  to 


394  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

display  it,  which  it  requires  a  man  of  considerable 
nerve  to  withstand.  He  is  peculiarly  happy  in  the 
examination  of  witnesses  —  that  art  in  which  so  few 
excel.  He  never  browbeats,  he  never  attempts  to  ter 
rify.  He  is  never  rude  or  discourteous.  But  the 
equivocating  witness  soon  discovers  that  his  falsehood 
is  hunted  out  of  its  recesses  with  an  unsparing  deter 
mination.  If  he  is  dogged  and  surly,  he  is  met  by  a 
spirit  as  resolute  as  his  own.  If  he  is  smooth  and 
plausible,  the  veil  is  lifted  from  him  by  a  firm  but 
graceful  hand.  If  he  is  pompous  and  vain,  no  ridi 
cule  was  ever  more  perfect  than  that  to  which  he  lis 
tens  with  astonished  and  mortified  ears. 

"  The  eloquence  of  Mr.  Pierce  is  of  a  character  not 
to  be  easily  forgotten.  He  understands  men,  their 
passions  and  their  feelings.  He  knows  the  way  to 
their  hearts,  and  can  make  them  vibrate  to  his  touch. 
His  language  always  attracts  the  hearer.  A  graceful 
and  manly  carriage,  bespeaking  him  at  once  the  gen 
tleman  and  the  true  man  ;  a  manner  warmed  by  the 
ardent  glow  of  an  earnest  belief ;  an  enunciation  ring 
ing,  distinct,  and  impressive  beyond  that  of  most  men ; 
a  command  of  brilliant  and  expressive  language  ;  and 
an  accurate  taste,  together  with  a  sagacious  and  in 
stinctive  insight  into  the  points  of  his  case,  are  the 
secrets  of  his  success.  It  is  thus  that  audiences  are 
moved  and  truth  ascertained ;  and  he  will  ever  be  the 
most  successful  advocate  who  can  approach  the  nearest 
to  this  lofty  and  difficult  position. 

"  Mr.  Pierce's  views  as  a  constitutional  lawyer  are 
such  as  have  been  advocated  by  the  ablest  minds  of 
America.  They  are  those  which,  taking  their  rise  in 
the  heroic  age  of  the  country,  were  transmitted  to  him 
by  a  noble  father,  worthy  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived, 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  395 

worthy  of  that  Revolution  which  he  assisted  in  bringing 
about.  He  believes  that  the  Constitution  was  made, 
not  to  be  subverted,  but  to  be  sacredly  preserved ;  that 
a  republic  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  conservation 
of  law,  of  rational  submission  to  right  authority,  and 
of  true  self-government.  Equally  removed  from  that 
malignant  hostility  to  order  which  characterizes  the 
demagogues  who  are  eager  to  rise  upon  the  ruins  even 
of  freedom,  and  from  that  barren  and  bigoted  narrow 
ness  which  would  oppose  all  rational  freedom  of  opin 
ion,  he  is,  in  its  loftiest  and  most  ennobling  sense,  a 
friend  of  that  Union,  without  which  the  honored  name 
of  American  citizen  would  become  a  by-word  among 
the  nations.  And  if,  as  we  fervently  pray  and  confi 
dently  expect  he  will,  Mr.  Pierce  shall  display  before 
the  great  tribunals  of  the  nation  the  courage,  the  con 
sistency,  the  sagacity,  and  the  sense  of  honor,  which 
have  already  secured  for  him  so  many  thousands  of 
devoted  friends,  and  which  have  signalized  both  his 
private  and  professional  life,  his  administration  will 
long  be  held  in  grateful  remembrance  as  one  of  which 
the  sense  of  right  and  the  sagacity  to  perceive  it,  a 
clear  insight  into  the  true  destinies  of  the  country  and 
a  determination  to  uphold  them  at  whatever  sacrifice, 
were  the  predominant  characteristics." 

It  may  appear  singular  that  Franklin  Pierce  has  not 
taken  up  his  residence  in  some  metropolis,  where  his 
great  forensic  abilities  would  so  readily  find  a  more 
conspicuous  theatre,  and  a  far  richer  remuneration 
than  heretofore.  He  himself,  it  is  understood,  has 
sometimes  contemplated  a  removal,  and,  two  or  three 
years  since,  had  almost  determined  on  settling  in  Bal 
timore.  But  his  native  state,  where  he  is  known  so 
well,  and  regarded  with  so  much  familiar  affection, 


396  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

which  he  has  served  so  faithfully,  and  which  rewards 
him  so  generously  with  its  confidence,  New  Hampshire, 
with  its  granite  hills,  must  always  be  his  home.  He 
will  dwell  there,  except  when  public  duty  for  a  season 
shall  summon  him  away ;  he  will  die  there,  and  give 
his  dust  to  its  soil. 

It  was  at  his  option,  in  1846,  to  accept  the  highest 
legal  position  in  the  country,  setting  aside  the  bench, 
and  the  one  which  undoubtedly  would  most  have  grati 
fied  his  professional  aspirations.  President  Polk,  with 
whom  he  had  been  associated  on  the  most  friendly 
terms  in  Congress,  now  offered  him  the  post  of  attor 
ney  general  of  the  United  States.  "  In  tendering  to 
you  this  position  in  my  cabinet,"  writes  the  President, 
"  I  have  been  governed  by  the  high  estimate  which  I 
place  upon  your  character  and  eminent  qualifications 
to  fill  it."  The  letter,  in  whi^h  this  proposal  is  de 
clined,  shows  so  much  of  the  writer's  real  self  that  we 
quote  a  portion  of  it. 

"  Although  the  early  years  of  my  manhood  were  de 
voted  to  public  life,  it  was  never  really  suited  to  my 
taste.  I  longed,  as  I  am  sure  you  must  often  have 
done,  for  the  quiet  and  independence  that  belong  only 
to  the  private  citizen ;  and  now,  at  forty,  I  feel  that 
desire  stronger  than  ever. 

"  Coming  so  unexpectedly  as  this  offer  does,  it  would 
be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  arrange  the  business 
of  an  extensive  practice,  between  this  and  the  first  of 
November,  in  a  manner  at  all  satisfactory  to  myself, 
or  to  those  who  have  committed  their  interests  to  my 
care,  and  who  rely  on  my  services.  Besides,  you  know 
that  Mrs.  Pierce's  health,  while  at  Washington,  was 
very  delicate.  It  is,  I  fear,  even  more  so  now ;  and 
the  responsibilities  which  the  proposed  change  would 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  397 

necessarily  impose  upon  her  ought,  probably,  in  them 
selves,  to  constitute  an  insurmountable  objection  to 
leaving  our  quiet  home  for  a  public  station  at  Wash 


ington. 


"  When  I  resigned  my  seat  in  the  Senate  in  1842,  I 
did  it  with  the  fixed  purpose  never  again  to  be  volun 
tarily  separated  from  my  family  for  any  considerable 
length  of  time,  except  at  the  call  of  my  country  in 
time  of  war  ;  and  yet  this  consequence,  for  the  reason 
before  stated,  and  on  account  of  climate,  would  be  very 
likely  to  result  from  my  acceptance. 

"  These  are  some  of  the  considerations  which  have 
influenced  my  decision.  You  will,  I  am  sure,  appre 
ciate  my  motives.  You  will  not  believe  that  I  have 
weighed  my  personal  convenience  and  ease  against  the 
public  interest,  especially  as  the  office  is  one  which,  if 
not  sought,  would  be  readily  accepted  by  gentlemen 
who  could  bring  to  your  aid  attainments  and  qualifica 
tions  vastly  superior  to  mine." 

Previous  to  the  offer  of  the  attorney-generalship,  the 
appointment  of  United  States  Senator  had  been  ten 
dered  to  Pierce  by  Governor  Steele,  and  declined.  It 
is  unquestionable  that,  at  this  period,  he  hoped  and  ex 
pected  to  spend  a  life  of  professional  toil  in  a  private 
station,  undistinguished  except  by  the  exercise  of  his 
great  talents  in  peaceful  pursuits.  But  such  was  not 
his  destiny.  The  contingency  to  which  he  referred  in 
the  above  letter,  as  the  sole  exception  to  his  purpose  of 
never  being  separated  from  his  family,  was  now  about 
to  occur.  Nor  did  he  fail  to  comport  himself  as  not 
only  that  intimation,  but  the  whole  tenor  of  his  charac 
ter,  gave  reason  to  anticipate. 

During  the  years  embraced  in  this  chapter,  —  be 
tween  1842  and  1847,  —  he  had  constantly  taken  an 


398  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

efficient  interest  in  the  politics  of  the  state,  but  had 
uniformly  declined  the  honors  which  New  Hampshire 
was  at  all  times  ready  to  confer  upon  him.  A  dem 
ocratic  convention  nominated  him  for  governor,  but 
could  not  obtain  his  acquiescence.  One  of  the  occa 
sions  on  which  he  most  strenuously  exerted  himself 
was  in  holding  the  democratic  party  loyal  to  its  prin 
ciples,  in  opposition  to  the  course  of  John  P.  Hale. 
This  gentleman,  then  a  representative  in  Congress, 
had  broken  with  his  party  on  no  less  important  a  point 
than  the  annexation  of  Texas.  He  has  never  since 
acted  with  the  Democracy,  and  has  long  been  a  leader 
of  the  free  soil  party. 

In  1844  died  Frank  Robert,  son  of  Franklin  Pierce, 
aged  four  years,  a  little  boy  of  rare  beauty  and  prom 
ise,  and  whose  death  was  the  greatest  affliction  that  his 
father  has  experienced.  His  only  surviving  child  is  a 
son,  now  eleven  years  old. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   MEXICAN   WAR. 

WHEN  Franklin  Pierce  declined  the  honorable  offer 
of  the  attorney-generalship  of  the  United  States,  he 
intimated  that  there  might  be  one  contingency  in  which 
he  would  feel  it  his  duty  to  give  up  the  cherished  pur 
pose  of  spending  the  remainder  of  his  life  in  a  private 
station.  That  exceptional  case  was  brought  about,  in 
1847,  by  the  Mexican  War.  He  showed  his  readiness 
to  redeem  the  pledge  by  enrolling  himself  as  the  ear 
liest  volunteer  of  a  company  raised  in  Concord,  and 
went  through  the  regular  drill,  with  his  fellow-soldiers, 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  399 

as  a  private  in  the  ranks.  On  the  passage  of  the  bill 
for  the  increase  of  the  army,  he  received  the  appoint 
ment  of  colonel  of  the  Ninth  Regiment,  which  was  the 
quota  of  New  England  towards  the  ten  that  were  to  be 
raised.  And  shortly  afterwards,  —  in  March,  1847,  — 
he  was  commissioned  as  brigadier-general  in  the  army  i 
his  brigade  consisting  of  regiments  from  the  extreme 
north,  the  extreme  west,  and  the  extreme  south  of  the 
Union. 

There  is  nothing  in  any  other  country  similar  to 
what  we  see  in  our  own,  when  the  blast  of  the  trumpet 
at  once  converts  men  of  peaceful  pursuits  into  warriors. 
Every  war  in  which  America  has  been  engaged  has 
done  this ;  the  valor  that  wins  our  battles  is  not  the 
trained  hardihood  of  veterans,  but  a  native  and  spon 
taneous  fire ;  and  there  is  surely  a  chivalrous  beauty 
in  the  devotion  of  the  citizen  soldier  to  his  country's 
cause,  which  the  man  who  makes  arms  his  profession, 
and  is  but  doing  his  regular  business  on  the  field  of 
battle,  cannot  pretend  to  rival.  Taking  the  Mexican 
War  as  a  specimen,  this  peculiar  composition  of  an 
American  army,  as  well  in  respect  to  its  officers  as  its 
private  soldiers,  seems  to  create  a  spirit  of  romantic 
adventure  which  more  than  supplies  the  place  of  disci 
plined  courage. 

The  author  saw  General  Pierce  in  Boston,  on  the 
eve  of  his  departure  for  Vera  Cruz.  He  had  been  in 
tensely  occupied,  since  his  appointment,  in  effecting 
the  arrangements  necessary  on  leaving  his  affairs,  as 
well  as  by  the  preparations,  military  and  personal,  de 
manded  by  the  expedition.  The  transports  were  wait 
ing  at  Newport  to  receive  the  troops.  He  was  now  in 
the  midst  of  bustle,  with  some  of  the  officers  of  his 
command  about  him,  mingled  with  the  friends  whom 


400  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

he  was  to  leave  behind.  The  severest  point  of  the 
crisis  was  over,  for  he  had  already  bidden  his  family 
farewell.  His  spirits  appeared  to  have  risen  with  the 
occasion.  He  was  evidently  in  his  element ;  nor,  to 
say  the  truth,  dangerous  as  was  the  path  before  him, 
could  it  be  regretted  that  his  life  was  now  to  have  the 
opportunity  of  that  species  of  success  which  —  in  his 
youth,  at  least  —  he  had  considered  the  best  worth 
struggling  for.  He  looked  so  fit  to  be  a  soldier,  that 
it  was  impossible  to  doubt  —  not  merely  his  good  con 
duct,  which  was  as  certain  before  the  event  as  after 
wards,  but  —  his  good  fortune  in  the  field,  and  his 
fortunate  return. 

He  sailed  from  Newport  on  the  27th  of  May,  in 
the  bark  Kepler,  having  on  board  three  companies  of 
the  Ninth  Regiment  of  Infantry,  together  with  Colo 
nel  Hansom,  its  commander,  and  the  officers  belong 
ing  to  the  detachment.  The  passage  was  long  and 
tedious,  with  protracted  calms,  and  so  smooth  a  sea 
that  a  sail  boat  might  have  performed  the  voyage  in 
safety.  The  Kepler  arrived  at  Yera  Cruz  in  precisely 
a  month  after  her  departure  from  the  United  States, 
without  speaking  a  single  vessel  from  the  south  dur 
ing  her  passage,  and,  of  course,  receiving  no  intelli 
gence  as  to  the  position  and  state  of  the  army  which 
these  reinforcements  were  to  join. 

From  a  journal  kept  by  General  Pierce,  and  in 
tended  only  fo*  the  perusal  of  his  family  and  friends, 
we  present  some  extracts.  They  are  mere  hasty  jot 
tings-down  in  camp,  and  at  the  intervals  of  weary 
marches,  but  will  doubtless  bring  the  reader  closer  to 
the  man  than  any  narrative  which  we  could  substi 
tute.1 

1  In  this  reprint  it  has  been  thought  expedient  to  omit  the  passages 
from  General  Pierce's  journal. 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  401 

General  Pierce's  journal  here  terminates.  In  its 
clear  and  simple  narrative,  the  reader  cannot  fail  to 
see  —  although  it  was  written  with  no  purpose  of  dis 
playing  them  —  the  native  qualities  of  a  born  soldier, 
together  with  the  sagacity  of  an  experienced  one.  He 
had  proved  himself,  moreover,  physically  apt  for  war, 
by  his  easy  endurance  of  the  fatigues  of  the  march  ; 
every  step  of  which  (as  was  the  case  with  few  other 
officers)  was  performed  either  on  horseback  or  on  foot. 
Nature,  indeed,  has  endowed  him  with  a  rare  elasticity 
both  of  mind  and  body ;  he  springs  up  from  pressure 
like  a  well-tempered  sword.  After  the  severest  toil,  a 
single  night's  rest  does  as  much  for  him,  in  the  way 
of  refreshment,  as  a  week  could  do  for  most  other 
men. 

His  conduct  on  this  adventurous  march  received  the 
high  encomiums  of  military  men,  and  was  honored 
with  the  commendation  of  the  great  soldier  who  is 
now  his  rival  in  the  presidential  contest.  He  reached 
the  main  army  at  Puebla  on  the  7th  of  August,  with 
twenty-four  hundred  men,  in  fine  order,  and  without 
the  loss  of  a  single  wagon. 


CHAPTER  V. 

HIS   SERVICES   IN   THE    VALLEY   OF   MEXICO. 

GENERAL  SCOTT,  who  was  at  Puebla  with  the  main 
army,  awaiting  this  reinforcement,  began  his  march 
towards  the  city  of  Mexico  on  the  day  after  General 
Pierce's  arrival.  The  battle  of  Contreras  was  fought 
on  the  19th  of  August. 

VOL.  XII.  20 


402  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

The  enemy's  force  consisted  of  about  seven  thou 
sand  men,  posted  in  a  strongly-intrenched  cam]),  un 
der  General  Valencia,  one  of  the  bravest  and  ablest 
of  the  Mexican  commanders.  The  object  of  the  com 
manding  general  appears  to  have  been  to  cut  off  the 
communications  of  these  detached  troops  with  Santa 
Anna's  main  army,  and  thus  to  have  them  entirely  at 
his  mercy.  For  this  purpose  a  portion  of  the  Amer 
ican  forces  were  ordered  to  move  against  Valencia's 
left  flank,  and,  by  occupying  strong  positions  in  the 
villages  and  on  the  roads  towards  the  city,  to  prevent 
reinforcements  from  reaching  him.  In  the  mean  time, 
to  draw  the  enemy's  attention  from  this  movement,  a 
vigorous  onset  was  made  upon  his  front ;  and  as  the 
operations  upon  his  flank  were  not  immediately  and 
fully  carried  out  according  to  the  plan,  this  front 
demonstration  assumed  the  character  of  a  fierce  and 
desperate  attack,  upon  which  the  fortunes  of  the  day 
much  depended.  General  Pierce's  brigade  formed  a 
part  of  the  force  engaged  in  this  latter  movement,  in 
Which  four  thousand  newly-recruited  men,  unable  to 
bring  their  artillery  to  bear,  contended  against  seven 
thousand  disciplined  soldiers,  protected  by  intrench- 
ments,  and  showering  round  shot  and  shells  against 
the  assailing  troops. 

The  ground  in  front  was  of  the  rudest  and  roughest 
character.  The  troops  made  their  way  with  difficulty 
over  a  broken  tract  called  the  Pedregal,  bristling  with 
sharp  points  of  rocks,  and  which  is  represented  as 
having  been  the  crater  of  a  now  exhausted  and  ex 
tinct  volcano.  The  enemy  had  thrown  out  skirmish 
ers,  who  were  posted  in  great  force  among  the  crevices 
and  inequalities  of  this  broken  ground,  and  vigorously 
resisted  the  American  advance ;  while  the  artillery  of 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  403 

the  intrenched  camp  played  upon  our  troops,  and  shat 
tered  the  very  rocks  over  which  they  were  to  pass. 

General  Pierce's  immediate  command  had  never  be 
fore  been  under  such  a  fire  of  artillery.  The  enemy's 
range  was  a  little  too  high,  or  the  havoc  in  our  ranks 
must  have  been  dreadful.  In  the  midst  of  this  fire9 
General  Pierce,  being  the  only  officer  mounted  in  the 
brigade,  leaped  his  horse  upon  an  abrupt  eminence, 
and  addressed  the  colonels  and  captains  of  the  regi 
ments,  as  they  passed,  in  a  few  stirring  words  —  re 
minding  them  of  the  honor  of  their  country,  of  the 
victory  their  steady  valor  would  contribute  to  achieve. 
Pressing  forward  to  the  head  of  the  column,  he  had 
nearly  reached  the  practicable  ground  that  lay  beyond, 
when  his  horse  slipped  among  the  rocks,  thrust  his 
foot  into  a  crevice,  and  fell,  breaking  his  own  leg,  and 
crushing  his  rider  heavily  beneath  him. 

Pierce's  mounted  orderly  soon  came  to  his  assist 
ance.  The  general  was  stunned,  and  almost  insensible. 
When  partially  recovered,  he  found  himself  suffering 
from  severe  bruises,  and  especially  from  a  sprain  of  the 
left  knee,  which  was  undermost  when  the  horse  came 
down.  The  orderly  assisted  him  to  reach  the  shelter 
of  a  projecting  rock  ;  and  as  they  made  their  way 
thither,  a  shell  fell  close  beside  them  and  exploded, 
covering  them  with  earth.  "  That  was  a  lucky  miss," 
said  Pierce  calmly.  Leaving  him  in  such  shelter  as 
the  rock  afforded,  the  orderly  went  in  search  of  aid, 
and  was  fortunate  to  meet  with  Dr.  Ritchie,  of  Vir 
ginia,  who  was  attached  to  Pierce's  brigade,  and  was 
following  in  close  proximity  to  the  advancing  column. 
The  doctor  administered  to  him  as  well  as  the  circum 
stances  would  admit.  Immediately  on  recovering  his 
full  consciousness,  General  Pierce  had  become  anxious 


404  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

to  rejoin  his  troops ;  and  now,  in  opposition  to  Dr. 
Ritchie's  advice  and  remonstrances,  he  determined  to 
proceed  to  the  front. 

With  pain  and  difficulty,  and  leaning  on  his  order 
ly's  arm,  he  reached  the  battery  commanded  by  Cap 
tain  McGruder,  where  he  found  the  horse  of  Lieuten 
ant  Johnson,  who  had  just  before  received  a  mortal 
wound.  In  compliance  with  his  wishes,  he  was  as 
sisted  into  the  saddle  ;  and,  in  answer  to  a  remark 
that  he  would  be  unable  to  keep  his  seat,  "Then,"  said 
the  general,  "  you  must  tie  me  on."  Whether  his  pre 
caution  was  actually  taken  is  a  point  on  which  author 
ities  differ ;  but  at  all  events,  with  injuries  so  severe 
as  would  have  sent  almost  any  other  man  to  the  hos 
pital,  he  rode  forward  into  the  battle. 

The  contest  was  kept  up  until  nightfall,  without 
forcing  Valencia's  intrenchment.  General  Pierce  re 
mained  in  the  saddle  until  eleven  o'clock  at  night. 
Finding  himself,  at  nine  o'clock,  the  senior  officer  in 
the  field,  he,  in  that  capacity,  withdrew  the  troops 
from  their  advanced  position,  and  concentrated  them 
at  the  point  where  they  were  to  pass  the  night.  At 
eleven,  beneath  a  torrent  of  rain,  destitute  of  a  tent  or 
other  protection,  and  without  food  or  refreshment,  he 
lay  down  on  an  ammunition  wagon,  but  was  prevented 
by  the  pain  of  his  injuries,  especially  that  of  his 
wounded  knee,  from  finding  any  repose.  At  one  o'clock 
came  orders  from  General  Scott  to  put  the  brigade 
into  a  new  position,  in  front  of  the  enemy's  works,  pre 
paratory  to  taking  part  in  the  contemplated  operations 
of  the  next  morning.  During  the  night,  the  troops 
appointed  for  that  service,  under  Riley,  Shields,  Smith, 
and  Cadwallader,  had  occupied  the  villages  and  roads 
between  Valencia's  position  and  the  city ;  so  that,  with 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  405 

daylight,  the  commanding  general's  scheme  of  the  bat 
tle  was  ready  to  be  carried  out,  as  it  had  originally  ex 
isted  in  his  mind. 

At  daylight,  accordingly,  Valencia's  intrenched  camp 
was  assaulted.  General  Pierce  was  soon  in  the  saddle 
at  the  head  of  his  brigade,  which  retained  its  position 
in  front,  thus  serving  to  attract  the  enemy's  attention, 
and  divert  him  from  the  true  point  of  attack.  The 
camp  was  stormed  in  the  rear  by  the  American  troops, 
led  on  by  Riley,  Cadwallader,  and  Dimmick ;  and  in 
the  short  space  of  seventeen  minutes  it  had  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  the  assailants,  together  with  a  multitude 
of  prisoners.  The  remnant  of  the  routed  enemy  fled 
towards  Churubusco.  As  Pierce  led  his  brigade  in 
pursuit,  crossing  the  battle-field,  and  passing  through 
the  works  that  had  just  been  stormed,  he  found  the 
road  and  adjacent  fields  everywhere  strewn  with  the 
dead  and  dying.  The  pursuit  was  continued  until  one 
o'clock,  when  the  foremost  of  the  Americans  arrived 
in  front  of  the  strong  Mexican  positions  at  Churubusco 
and  San  Antonio,  where  Santa  Anna's  army  had  been 
compelled  to  make  a  stand,  and  where  the  great  con 
flict  of  the  day  commenced. 

General  Santa  Anna  entertained  the  design  of  with 
drawing  his  forces  towards  the  city.  In  order  to  in 
tercept  this  movement,  Pierce's  brigade,  with  other 
troops,  was  ordered  to  pursue  a  route  by  which  the  en 
emy  could  be  attacked  in  the  rear.  Colonel  Noah  E. 
Smith  (a  patriotic  American,  long  resident  in  Mexico, 
whose  local  and  topographical  knowledge  proved  emi 
nently  serviceable)  had  offered  to  point  out  the  road, 
and  was  sent  to  summon  General  Pierce  to  the  pres 
ence  of  the  commander-in-chief .  When  he  met  Pierce, 
near  Coyacan,  at  the  head  of  his  brigade,  the  heavy  fire 


406  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

of  the  batteries  had  commenced.  "  He  was  exceed 
ingly  thin,"  writes  Colonel  Smith,  "  worn  down  by  the 
fatigue  and  pain  of  the  day  and  night  before,  and  then 
evidently  suffering  severely.  Still  there  was  a  glow  in 
his  eye,  as  the  cannon  boomed,  that  showed  within  him 
a  spirit  ready  for  the  conflict."  He  rode  up  to  Gen 
eral  Scott,  who  was  at  this  time  sitting  on  horseback 
beneath  a  tree,  near  the  church  of  Coyacan,  issuing 
orders  to  different  individuals  of  his  staff.  Our  ac 
count  of  this  interview  is  chiefly  taken  from  the  nar 
rative  of  Colonel  Smith,  corroborated  by  other  testi 
mony. 

The  commander-in-chief  had  already  heard  of  the 
accident  that  befell  Pierce  the  day  before  ;  and  as 
the  latter  approached,  General  Scott  could  not  but  no 
tice  the  marks  of  pain  and  physical  exhaustion  against 
which  only  the  sturdiest  constancy  of  will  could  have 
enabled  him  to  bear  up.  "  Pierce,  my  dear  fellow," 
said  he,  —  and  that  epithet  of  familiar  kindness  and 
friendship,  upon  the  battle-field,  was  the  highest  of 
military  commendation  from  such  a  man,  —  "  you  are 
badly  injured;  you  are  not  fit  to  be  in  your  saddle." 
"  Yes,  general,  I  am,"  replied  Pierce,  "  in  a  case  like 
this."  "  You  cannot  touch  your  foot  to  the  stirrup," 
said  Scott.  "  One  of  them  I  can,"  answered  Pierce. 
The  general  looked  again  at  Pierce's  almost  disabled 
figure,  and  seemed  011  the  point  of  taking  his  irrevo 
cable  resolution.  "You  are  rash,  General  Pierce," 
said  he  ;  "  we  shall  lose  you,  and  we  cannot  spare  you. 
It  is  my  duty  to  order  you  back  to  St.  Augustine." 
"  For  God's  sake,  general,"  exclaimed  Pierce,  "  don't 
say  that !  This  is  the  last  great  battle,  and  I  must 
lead  my  brigade  !  "  The  commander-in-chief  made  no 
further  remonstrance,  but  gave  the  order  for  Pierce  to 
advance  with  his  brigade. 


LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  407 

The  way  lay  through  thick  standing  corn,  and  over 
marshy  ground  intersected  with  ditches,  which  were 
filled,  or  partially  so,  with  water.  Over  some  of  the 
narrower  of  these  Pierce  leaped  his  horse.  When  the 
brigade  had  advanced  about  a  mile,  however,  it  found 
itself  impeded  by  a  ditch  ten  or  twelve  feet  wide,  and 
six  or  eight  feet  deep.  It  being  impossible  to  leap  it, 
General  Pierce  was  lifted  from  his  saddle,  and  in  some 
incomprehensible  way,  hurt  as  he  was,  contrived  to 
wade  or  scramble  across  this  obstacle,  leaving  his  horse 
on  the  hither  side.  The  troops  were  now  under  fire. 
In  the  excitement  of  the  battle  he  forgot  his  injury, 
and  hurried  forward,  leading  the  brigade,  a  distance 
of  two  or  three  hundred  yards.  But  the  exhaustion 
of  his  frame,  and  particularly  the  anguish  of  his  knee, 
—  made  more  intolerable  by  such  free  use  of  it,  —  was 
greater  than  any  strength  of  nerve,  or  any  degree  of 
mental  energy,  could  struggle  against.  He  fell,  faint 
and  almost  insensible,  within  full  range  of  the  enemy's 
fire.  It  was  proposed  to  bear  him  off  the  field ;  but, 
as  some  of  his  soldiers  approached  to  lift  him,  he  be 
came  aware  of  their  purpose,  and  was  partially  revived 
by  his  determination  to  resist  it.  "  No,"  said  he,  with 
all  the  strength  he  had  left,  u  don't  carry  me  off !  Let 
me  lie  here  !  "  And  there  he  lay,  under  the  tremen 
dous  fire  of  Churubusco,  until  the  enemy,  in  total  rout, 
was  driven  from  the  field. 

Immediately  after  the  victory,  when  the  city  of 
Mexico  lay  at  the  mercy  of  the  American  commander, 
and  might  have  been  entered  that  very  night,  Santa 
Anna  sent  a  flag  of  truce,  proposing  an  armistice,  with 
a  view  to  negotiations  for  peace.  It  cannot  be  con 
sidered  in  any  other  light  than  as  a  very  high  and  sig 
nal  compliment  to  his  gallantry  in  the  field  that  Gen- 


408  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

era!  Pierce  was  appointed,  by  the  Commander-in-chief, 
one  of  the  commissioners  on  our  part,  together  with 
General  Quitman  and  General  Persifer  F.  Smith,  to 
arrange  the  terms  of  this  armistice.  Pierce  was  una 
ble  to  walk,  or  to  mount  his  horse  without  assistance, 
when  intelligence  of  his  appointment  reached  him. 
He  had  not  taken  off  his  spurs,  nor  slept  an  hour,  for 
two  nights  ;  but  he  immediately  obeyed  the  summons, 
was  assisted  into  the  saddle,  and  rode  to  Tacubaya, 
where,  at  the  house  of  the  British  consul-general,  the 
American  and  Mexican  commissioners  were  assembled. 
The  conference  began  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  con 
tinued  till  four  o'clock  the  next  morning,  when  the 
articles  were  signed.  Pierce  then  proceeded  to  the 
quarters  of  General  Worth,  in  the  village  of  Tacubaya, 
where  he  obtained  an  hour  or  two  of  repose. 

The  expectation  of  General  Scott,  that  further  blood 
shed  might  be  avoided  by  means  of  the  armistice, 
proved  deceptive.  Military  operations,  after  a  tem 
porary  interruption,  were  actively  renewed ;  and  on 
the  8th  of  September  was  fought  the  bloody  battle  of 
Molino  del  Rey,  one  of  the  fiercest  and  most  destruc 
tive  of  the  war. 

In  this  conflict  general  Worth,  with  three  thousand 
troops,  attacked  and  routed  fourteen  thousand  Mex 
icans,  driving  them  under  the  protection  of  the  Castle 
of  Chepultepec.  Perceiving  the  obstinacy  with  which 
the  field  was  contested,  the  commander-in-chief  dis 
patched  an  order  to  General  Pierce  to  advance  to  the 
support  of  General  Worth's  division.  He  moved  for 
ward  with  rapidity ;  and  although  the  battle  was  won 
just  as  he  reached  the  field,  he  interposed  his  brigade 
between  Worth  and  the  retreating  enemy,  and  thus 
drew  upon  himself  the  fire  of  Chepultepec.  A  shell 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  409 

came  streaming  from  the  castle,  and,  bursting  within 
a  few  feet  of  him,  startled  his  horse,  which  was  near 
plunging  over  an  adjacent  precipice.  Continuing  a 
long  time  under  fire,  Pierce's  brigade  was  engaged  in 
removing  the  wounded  and  the  captured  ammunition. 
While  thus  occupied,  he  led  a  portion  of  his  command 
to  repel  the  attacks  of  the  enemy's  skirmishers. 

There  remained  but  one  other  battle,  —  that  of  Che- 
pultepec,  —  which  was  fought  on  the  13th  of  Septem 
ber.  On  the  preceding  day  (although  the  injuries 
and  the  over-exertion  resuming  from  previous  marches 
and  battles  had  greatly  enfeebled  him),  General  Pierce 
had  acted  with  his  brigade.  In  obedience  to  orders, 
it  had  occupied  the  field  of  Molino  del  Rey.  Contrary 
to  expectation,  it  was  found  that  the  enemy's  force  had 
been  withdrawn  from  this  position.  Pierce  remained 
in  the  field  until  noon,  when,  it  being  certain  that  the 
anticipated  attack  would  not  take  place  before  the  fol 
lowing  day,  he  returned  to  the  quarters  of  General 
Worth,  which  were  near  at  hand.  There  he  became 
extremely  ill,  and  was  unable  to  leave  his  bed  for  the 
thirty-six  hours  next  ensuing.  In  the  mean  time,  the 
Castle  of  Chepultepec  was  stormed  by  the  troops  un 
der  Generals  Pillow  and  Quitman.  Pierce's  brigade 
behaved  itself  gallantly,  and  suffered  severely  ;  and 
that  accomplished  officer,  Colonel  Hansom,  leading  the 
Ninth  Regiment  to  the  attack,  was  shot  through  the 
head,  and  fell,  with  many  other  brave  men,  in  that 
last  battle  of  the  war. 

The  American  troops,  under  Quitman  and  Worth, 
had  established  themselves  within  the  limits  of  the 
city,  having  possession  of  the  gates  of  Belen  and  of  San 
Cosma,  but,  up  till  nightfall,  had  met  with  a  vigorous 
resistance  from  the  Mexicans,  led  on  by  Santa  Anna 


410  LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

in  person.  They  had  still,  apparently,  a  desperate 
task  before  them.  It  was  anticipated  that,  with  the 
next  morning's  light,  our  troops  would  be  ordered  to 
storm  the  citadel,  and  the  city  of  Mexico  itself.  When 
this  was  told  to  Pierce,  upon  his  sick-bed,  he  rose,  and 
attempted  to  dress  himself ;  but  Captain  Hardcastle, 
who  had  brought  the  intelligence  from  Worth,  pre 
vailed  upon  him  to  remain  in  bed,  and  not  to  exhaust 
his  scanty  strength  until  the  imminence  of  the  occa 
sion  should  require  his  presence.  Pierce  acquiesced 
for  the  time,  but  again  arose,  in  the  course  of  the 
night,  and  made  his  way  to  the  trenches,  where  he 
reported  himself  to  General  Quitman,  with  whose  di 
vision  was  a  part  of  his  brigade.  Quitman's  share  in 
the  anticipated  assault,  it  was  supposed,  owing  to  the 
position  which  his  troops  occupied,  would  be  more  per 
ilous  than  that  of  Worth. 

But  the  last  great  battle  had  been  fought.  In  the 
morning,  it  was  discovered  that  the  citadel  had  been 
abandoned,  and  that  Santa  Anna  had  withdrawn  his 
army  from  the 'city. 

There  never  was  a  more  gallant  body  of  officers  than 
those  who  came  from  civil  life  into  the  army  on  occa 
sion  of  the  Mexican  War.  All  of  them,  from  the  rank 
of  general  downward,  appear  to  have  been  animated 
by  the  spirit  of  young  knights,  in  times  of  chivalry, 
when  fighting  for  their  spurs.  Hitherto  known  only 
as  peaceful  citizens,  they  felt  it  incumbent  on  them, 
by  daring  and  desperate  valor,  to  prove  their  fitness  to 
be  intrusted  with  the  guardianship  of  their  country's 
honor.  The  old  and  trained  soldier,  already  distin 
guished  on  former  fields,  was  free  to  be  discreet  as 
well  as  brave  ;  but  these  untried  warriors  were  in  a 
different  position,  and  therefore  rushed  on  perils  with 


LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  411 

a  recklessness  that  found  its  penalty  on  every  battle 
field  —  not  one  of  which  was  won  without  a  grievous 
sacrifice  of  the  best  blood  of  America.  In  this  band 
of  gallant  men,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  General 
Pierce  was  as  distinguished  for  what  we  must  term  his 
temerity  in  personal  exposure,  as  for  the  higher  traits 
of  leadership,  wherever  there  was  an  opportunity  for 
their  display. 

He  had  manifested,  moreover,  other  and  better  qual 
ities  than  these,  and  such  as  it  affords  his  biographer 
far  greater  pleasure  to  record.  His  tenderness  of  heart, 
his  sympathy,  his  brotherly  or  paternal  care  for  his 
men,  had  been  displayed  in  a  hundred  instances,  and 
had  gained  him  the  enthusiastic  affection  of  all  who 
served  under  his  command.  During  the  passage  from 
America,  under  the  tropics,  he  would  go  down  into 
the  stifling  air  of  the  hold,  with  a  lemon,  a  cup  of  tea, 
and,  better  and  more  efficacious  than  all,  a  kind  word 
for  the  sick.  While  encamped  before  Yera  Cruz,  he 
gave  up  his  own  tent  to  a  sick  comrade,  and  went  him 
self  to  lodge  in  the  pestilential  city.  On  the  march, 
and  even  on  the  battle-field,  he  found  occasion  to  ex 
ercise  those  feelings  of  humanity  which  show  most 
beautifully  there.  And,  in  the  hospitals  of  Mexico, 
he  went  among  the  diseased  and  wounded  soldiers, 
cheering  them  with  his  voice  and  the  magic  of  his 
kindness,  inquiring  into  their  wants,  and  relieving 
them  to  the  utmost  of  his  pecuniary  means.  There 
was  not  a  man  of  his  brigade  but  loved  him,  and  would 
have  followed  him  to  death,  or  have  sacrificed  his  own 
life  in  his  general's  defence. 

The  officers  of  the  old  army,  whose  profession  was 
war,  and  who  well  knew  what  a  soldier  was  and  ought 
to  be,  fully  recognized  his  merit  An  instance  of 


412  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

their  honorable  testimony  in  his  behalf  may  fitly  be 
recorded  here.  It  was  after  General  Pierce  had  re 
turned  to  the  United  States.  At  a  dinner  in  the  halls 
of  Montezuma,  at  which  forty  or  f  fty  of  the  brave 
men  above  alluded  to  were  present,  a  young  officer  of 
the  New  England  Regiment  was  called  on  for  a  toast. 
He  made  an  address,  in  which  he  spoke  with  irrepres 
sible  enthusiasm  of  General  Pierce,  and  begged  to 
propose  his  health.  One  of  the  officers  of  the  old  line 
rose,  and  observed  that  none  of  the  recently  appointed 
generals  commanded  more  unanimous  and  universal 
respect ;  that  General  Pierce  had  appreciated  the  sci 
entific  knowledge  of  the  regular  military  men,  and  had 
acquired  their  respect  by  the  independence,  firmness, 
and  promptitude  with  which  he  exercised  his  own 
judgment,  and  acted  on  the  intelligence  derived  from 
them.  In  concluding  this  tribute  of  high,  but  well- 
considered  praise,  the  speaker  very  cordially  acqui 
esced  in  the  health  of  General  Pierce,  and  proposed 
that  it  should  be  drunk  standing,  with  three  times 
three. 

General  Pierce  remained  in  Mexico  until  Decem 
ber,  when,  as  the  warfare  was  over,  and  peace  on  the 
point  of  being  concluded,  he  set  out  on  his  return. 
In  nine  months,  crowded  full  of  incident,  he  had  seen 
far  more  of  actual  service  than  many  professional  sol 
diers  during  their  whole  lives.  As  soon  as  the  treaty 
of  peace  was  signed,  he  gave  up  his  commission,  and 
returned  to  the  practice  of  the  law,  again  proposing 
to  spend  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  the  bosom  of  his 
family.  All  the  dreams  of  his  youth  were  now  ful 
filled  ;  the  military  ardor,  that  had  struck  an  heredi 
tary  root  in  his  breast,  had  enjoyed  its  scope,  and  was 
satisfied;  and  he  flattered  himself  that  no  circum- 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  413 

stances  could  hereafter  occur  to  draw  him  from  the 
retirement  of  domestic  peace.  New  Hampshire  re 
ceived  him  with  even  more  enthusiastic  affection  than 
ever.  At  his  departure,  he  had  received  a  splendid 
sword  at  the  hands  of  many  of  his  friends,  in  token  of 
their  confidence ;  he  had  shown  himself  well  worthy 
to  wear  and  able  to  use  a  soldier's  weapon ;  and  his 
native  state  now  gave  him  another,  the  testimonial 
of  approved  valor  and  warlike  conduct. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    COMPROMISE   AND    OTHER   MATTERS. 

THE  intervening  years,  since  General  Pierce's  re 
turn  from  Mexico,  and  until  the  present  time,  have 
been  spent  in  the  laborious  exercise  of  the  legal  pro 
fession,  —  an  employment  scarcely  varied  or  inter 
rupted,  except  by  those  episodes  of  political  activity 
which  a  man  of  public  influence  finds  it  impossible  to 
avoid,  and  in  which,  if  his  opinions  are  matter  of  con 
science  with  him,  he  feels  it  his  duty  to  interest  him 
self. 

In  the  presidential  canvass  of  1848  he  used  his  best 
efforts  (and  with  success,  so  far  as  New  Hampshire 
was  concerned)  in  behalf  of  the  candidate  of  his  party. 
A  truer  and  better  speech  has  never  been  uttered  on  a 
similar  occasion  than  one  which  he  made  (during  a 
hurried  half  hour,  snatched  from  the  court  room)  in 
October  of  the  above  year,  before  the  democratic 
state  convention,  then  in  session  at  Concord.  It  is 
an  invariable  characteristic  of  General  Pierce's  popu 
lar  addresses,  that  they  evince  a  genuine  respect  for 


414  LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

the  people ;  he  makes  his  appeal  to  their  intelligence, 
their  patriotism,  and  their  integrity,  and,  never  doubt 
ful  of  their  upright  purpose,  proves  his  faith  in  the 
great  mind  and  heart  of  the  country  both  by  what  he 
says  and  by  what  he  refrains  from  saying.  He  never 
yet  was  guilty  of  an  effort  to  cajole  his  fellow-citizens, 
to  operate  upon  their  credulity,  or  to  trick  them  even 
into  what  was  right;  and  therefore  all  the  victories 
which  he  has  ever  won  in  popular  assemblies  have 
been  triumphs  doubly  honored,  being  as  creditable  to 
his  audiences  as  to  himself. 

When  the  series  of  measures  known  under  the  col 
lective  term  of  The  Compromise  were  passed  by  Con 
gress  in  1850,  and  put  to  so  searching  a  test  here  at 
the  North  the  reverence  of  the  people  for  the  Consti 
tution  and  their  attachment  to  the  Union,  General 
Pierce  was  true  to  the  principles  which  he  had  long 
ago  avowed.  At  an  early  period  of  his  congressional 
service  he  had  made  known,  with  the  perfect  frank 
ness  of  his  character,  those  opinions  upon  the  slavery 
question  which  he  has  never  since  seen  occasion  to 
change  in  the  slightest  degree.  There  is  an  unbroken 
consistency  in  his  action  with  regard  to  this  matter. 
It  is  entirely  of  a  piece,  from  his  first  entrance  upon 
public  life  until  the  moment  when  he  came  forward, 
while  many  were  faltering,  to  throw  the  great  weight 
of  his  character  and  influence  into  the  scale  in  favor 
of  those  measures  through  which  it  was  intended  to  re 
deem  the  pledges  of  the  Constitution,  and  to  preserve 
and  renew  the  old  love  and  harmony  among  the  sister 
hood  of  States.  His  approval  embraced  the  whole 
series  of  these  acts,  as  well  those  which  bore  hard  upon 
northern  views  and  sentiments  as  those  in  which  the 
South  deemed  itself  to  have  made  more  than  recipro 
cal  concessions. 


LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  415 

No  friend  nor  enemy  that  knew  Franklin  Pierce 
would  have  expected  him  to  act  otherwise.  With  his 
view  of  the  whole  subject,  whether  looking  at  it  through 
the  medium  of  his  conscience,  his  feelings,  or  his  intel 
lect,  it  was  impossible  for  him  not  to  take  his  stand  as 
the  unshaken  advocate  of  Union,  and  of  the  mutual 
steps  of  compromise  which  that  great  object  unques 
tionably  demanded.  The  fiercest,  the  least  scrupulous, 
and  the  most  consistent  of  those  who  battle  against 
slavery  recognize  the  same  fact  that  he  does.  They 
see  that  merely  human  wisdom  and  human  efforts  can 
not  subvert  it,  except  by  tearing  to  pieces  the  Constitu 
tion,  breaking  the  pledges  which  it  sanctions,  and  sev 
ering  into  distracted  fragments  that  common  country 
which  Providence  brought  into  one  nation,  through  a 
continued  miracle  of  almost  two  hundred  years,  from 
the  first  settlement  of  the  American  wilderness  until 
the  Revolution.  In  the  days  when,  a  young  member 
of  Congress,  he  first  raised  his  voice  against  agitation, 
Pierce  saw  these  perils  and  their  consequences.  He 
considered,  too,  that  the  evil  would  be  certain,  while 
the  good  was,  at  best,  a  contingency,  and  (to  the  clear, 
practical  foresight  with  which  he  looked  into  the  fu 
ture)  scarcely  so  much  as  that,  attended  as  the  move 
ment  was  and  must  be  during  its  progress,  with  the 
aggravated  injury  of  those  whose  condition  it  aimed  to 
ameliorate,  and  terminating,  in  its  possible  triumph, 
—  if  such  possibility  there  were,  —  with  the  ruin  of 
two  races  which  now  dwelt  together  in  greater  peace 
and  affection,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  than  had  ever 
elsewhere  existed  between  the  taskmaster  and  the  serf. 

Of  course,  there  is  another  view  of  all  these  matters. 
The  theorist  may  take  that  view  in  his  closet ;  the  phi 
lanthropist  by  profession  may  strive  to  act  upon  it  un- 


416  LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

compromisingly,  amid  the  tumult  and  warfare  of  his 
life.  But  the  statesman  of  practical  sagacity  —  who 
loves  his  country  as  it  is,  and  evolves  good  from  things 
as  they  exist,  and  who  demands  to  feel  his  firm  grasp 
upon  a  better  reality  before  he  quits  the  one  already 
gained  —  will  be  likely  here,  with  all  the  greatest 
statesmen  of  America,  to  stand  in  the  attitude  of  a 
conservative.  Such,  at  all  events,  will  be  the  attitude 
of  Franklin  Pierce.  We  have  sketched  some  of  the 
influences  amid  which  he  grew  up,  inheriting  his  fa 
ther's  love  of  country,  mindful  of  the  old  patriot's 
valor  in  so  many  conflicts  of  the  Revolution,  and  hav 
ing  close  before  his  eyes  the  example  of  brothers  and 
relatives,  more  than  one  of  whom  have  bled  for  Amer 
ica,  both  at  the  extremest  north  and  farthest  south  ; 
himself,  too,  in  early  manhood,  serving  the  Union  in 
its  legislative  halls,  and,  at  a  maturer  age,  leading  his 
fellow-citizens,  his  brethren,  from  the  widest-sundered 
states,  to  redden  the  same  battle-fields  with  their  kin 
dred  blood,  to  unite  their  breath  into  one  shout  of  vic 
tory,  and  perhaps  to  sleep,  side  by  side,  with  the  same 
sod  over  them.  Such  a  man,  with  such  hereditary 
recollections,  and  such  a  personal  experience,  must  not 
narrow  himself  to  adopt  the  cause  of  one  section  of  his 
native  country  against  another.  He  will  stand  up,  as 
he  has  always  stood,  among  the  patriots  of  the  whole 
land.  And  if  the  work  of  antislavery  agitation,  which 
it  is  undeniable  leaves  most  men  who  earnestly  engage 
in  it  with  only  half  a  country  in  their  affections,  —  if 
this  work  must  be  done,  let  others  do  it. 

Those  northern  men,  therefore,  who  deem  the  great 
cause  of  human  welfare  as  represented  and  involved 
in  this  present  hostility  against  southern  institutions, 
and  who  conceive  that  the  world  stands  still  except  so 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  417 

far  as  that  goes  forward,  —  these,  it  may  be  allowed, 
can  scarcely  give  their  sympathy  or  their  confidence 
to  the  subject  of  this  memoir.  Bat  there  is  still  an 
other  view,  and  probably  as  wise  a  one.  It  looks 
upon  slavery  as  one  of  those  evils  which  divine  Prov 
idence  does  not  leave  to  be  remedied  by  human  con 
trivances,  but  which,  in  its  own  good  time,  by  some 
means  impossible  to  be  anticipated,  but  of  the  simplest 
and  easiest  operation,  when  all  its  uses  shall  have  been 
fulfilled,  it  causes  to  vanish  like  a  dream.  There  is 
110  instance,  in  all  history,  of  the  human  will  and  in 
tellect  having  perfected  any  great  moral  reform  by 
methods  which  it  adapted  to  that  end ;  but  the  prog 
ress  of  the  world,  at  every  step,  leaves  some  evil  or 
wrong  on  the  path  behind  it,  which  the  wisest  of  man 
kind,  of  their  own  set  purpose,  could  never  have  found 
the  way  to  rectify.  Whatever  contributes  to  the  great 
cause  of  good,  contributes  to  all  its  subdivisions  and 
varieties  ;  and,  on  this  score,  the  lover  of  his  race,  the 
enthusiast,  the  philanthropist  of  whatever  theory,  might 
lend  his  aid  to  put  a  man,  like  the  one  before  us,  into 
the  leadership  of  the  world's  affairs. 

How  firm  and  conscientious  was  General  Pierce's 
support  of  The  Compromise  may  be  estimated  from 
his  conduct  in  reference  to  the  Reverend  John  Atwood. 
In  the  foregoing  pages  it  has  come  oftener  in  our  way 
to  illustrate  the  bland  and  prepossessing  features  of 
General  Pierce's  character,  than  those  sterner  ones 
which  must  necessarily  form  the  bones,  so  to  speak, 
the  massive  skeleton,  of  any  man  who  retains  an  up 
right  attitude  amidst  the  sinister  influences  of  public 
life.  The  transaction  now  alluded  to  affords  a  favor 
able  opportunity  for  indicating  some  of  these  latter 
traits. 


418  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

In  October,  1850,  a  democratic  convention,  held  at 
Concord,  nominated  Mr.  Atwood  as  the  party's  regidar 
candidate  for  governor.  The  Compromise,  then  re 
cent,  was  inevitably  a  prominent  element  in  the  dis 
cussions  of  the  convention  ;  and  a  series  of  resolutions 
were  adopted,  bearing  reference  to  this  great  subject, 
fully  and  unreservedly  indorsing  the  measures  com 
prehended  under  it,  and  declaring  the  principles  on 
which  the  Democracy  of  the  state  was  about  to  engage 
in  the  gubernatorial  contest.  Mr.  Atwood  accepted 
the  nomination,  acceding  to  the  platform  thus  tendered 
him,  taking  exceptions  to  none  of  the  individual  res 
olutions,  and,  of  course,  pledging  himself  to  the  whole 
by  the  very  act  of  assuming  the  candidacy,  which  was 
predicated  upon  them. 

The  reverend  candidate,  we  should  conceive,  is  a 
well-meaning,  and  probably  an  amiable  man.  In  or 
dinary  circumstances,  he  would,  doubtless,  have  gone 
through  the  canvass  triumphantly,  and  have  adminis 
tered  the  high  office  to  which  he  aspired  with  no  dis 
credit  to  the  party  that  had  placed  him  at  its  head. 
But  the  disturbed  state  of  the  public  mind  on  the 
Compromise  question  rendered  the  season  a  very  criti 
cal  one ;  and  Mr.  Atwood,  unfortunately,  had  that 
fatal  weakness  of  character,  which,  however  respecta 
bly  it  may  pass  in  quiet  times,  is  always  bound  to 
make  itself  pitiably  manifest  under  the  pressure  of  a 
crisis.  A  letter  was  addressed  to  him  by  a  committee, 
representing  the  party  opposed  to  The  Compromise, 
and  with  whom,  it  may  be  supposed,  were  included 
those  who  held  the  more  thorough-going  degrees  ol 
antislavery  sentiment.  The  purpose  of  the  letter  was 
to  draw  out  an  expression  of  Mr.  Atwood's  opinion  on 
the  abolition  movement  generally,  and  with  an  espe- 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  419 

cial  reference  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  whether, 
as  chief  magistrate  of  the  state,  he  would  favor  any 
attempt  for  its  repeal.  In  an  answer  of  considerable 
length  the  candidate  expressed  sentiments  that  brought 
him  unquestionably  within  the  free  soil  pale,  and  fa 
vored  his  correspondents,  moreover,  with  a  pretty  de 
cided  judgment  as  to  the  unconstitutional,  unjust,  and 
oppressive  character  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act. 

During  a  space  of  about  two  months,  this  very  im 
portant  document  was  kept  from  the  public  eye.  Ku- 
mors  of  its  existence,  however,  became  gradually 
noised  abroad,  and  necessarily  attracted  the  attention 
of  Mr.  Atwood's  democratic  friends.  Inquiries  being 
made,  he  acknowledged  the  existence  of  the  letter,  but 
averred  that  it  had  never  been  delivered,  that  it  was 
merely  a  rough  draught,  and  that  he  had  hitherto 
kept  it  within  his  own  control,  with  a  view  to  more 
careful  consideration.  In  accordance  with  the  advice 
of  friends,  he  expressed  a  determination,  and  appar 
ently  in  good  faith,  to  suppress  the  letter,  and  thus 
to  sever  all  connection  with  the  antislavery  party. 
•This,  however,  was  now  beyond  his  power.  A  copy 
of  the  letter  had  been  taken  ;  it  was  published,  with 
high  commendations,  in  the  antislavery  newspapers  ; 
and  Mr.  Atwood  was  exhibited  in  the  awkward  pre 
dicament  of  directly  avowing  sentiments  on  the  one 
hand  which  he  had  implicitly  disavowed  on  the  other, 
of  accepting  a  nomination  based  on  principles  diamet 
rically  opposite. 

The  candidate  appears  to  have  apprehended  this 
disclosure,  and  he  hurried  to  Concord,  and  sought 
counsel  of  General  Pierce,  with  whom  he  was  on  terms 
of  personal  kindness,  and  between  whom  and  himself, 
heretofore,  there  had  never  been  a  shade  of  political 


420  LIFE    OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

difference.  An  interview  with  the  general  and  one  or 
two  other  gentlemen  ensued.  Mr.  Atwood  was  cau 
tioned  against  saying  or  writing  a  word  that  might  be 
repugnant  to  his  feelings  or  his  principles ;  but,  vol 
untarily,  and  at  his  own  suggestion,  he  now  wrote  for 
publication  a  second  letter,  in  which  he  retracted  every 
objectionable  feature  of  his  former  one,  and  took  de 
cided  ground  in  favor  of  The  Compromise,  including 
all  its  individual  measures.  Had  he  adhered  to  this 
latter  position,  he  might  have  come  out  of  the  affair, 
if  not  with  the  credit  of  consistency,  yet,  at  least,  as  a 
successful  candidate  in  the  impending  election.  But 
his  evil  fate,  or,  rather,  the  natural  infirmity  of  his 
character,  was  not  so  to  be  thrown  off.  The  very  next 
day,  unhappily,  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  some  of  his 
antislavery  friends,  to  whom  he  avowed  a  constant  ad 
herence  to  the  principles  of  his  first  letter,  describing 
the  second  as  having  been  drawn  from  him  by  impor 
tunity,  in  an  excited  state  of  his  mind,  and  without  a 
full  realization  of  its  purport. 

It  would  be  needlessly  cruel  to  Mr.  Atwood  to  trace 
with  minuteness  the  further  details  of  this  affair.  It 
is  impossible  to  withold  from  him  a  certain  sympathy, 
or  to  avoid  feeling  that  a  very  worthy  man,  as  the  world 
goes,  had  entangled  himself  in  an  inextricable  knot  of 
duplicity  and  tergiversation,  by  an  ill-advised  effort  to 
be  two  opposite  things  at  once.  For  the  sake  of  true 
manhood,  we  gladly  turn  to  consider  the  course  adopted 
by  General  Pierce. 

The  election  for  governor  was  now  at  a  distance  of 
only  a  few  weeks ;  and  it  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
a  most  hazardous  movement  for  the  democratic  party, 
at  so  late  a  period,  to  discard  a  candidate  with  whom 
the  people  had  become  familiar.  It  involved  nothing 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  421 

less  than  the  imminent  peril  of  that  political  suprem 
acy  which  the  party  had  so  long  enjoyed.  With  Mr. 
Atwood  as  candidate,  success  might  still  be  considered 
certain.  To  a  short-sighted  and  a  weak  man,  it  would 
have  appeared  the  obvious  policy  to  patch  up  the  diffi 
culty,  and,  at  all  events,  to  conquer,  under  whatever 
leadership,  and  with  whatever  allies.  But  it  was  one 
of  those  junctures  which  test  the  difference  between 
the  man  of  principle  and  the  mere  politician  —  the 
man  of  moral  courage  and  him  who  yields  to  tempo 
rary  expediency.  General  Pierce  could  not  consent 
that  his  party  should  gain  a  nominal  triumph,  at  the 
expense  of  what  he  looked  upon  as  its  real  integrity 
and  life.  With  this  view  of  the  matter,  he  had  no 
hesitation  in  his  course ;  nor  could  the  motives  which 
otherwise  would  have  been  strongest  with  him  —  pity 
for  the  situation  of  an  unfortunate  individual,  a  per 
sonal  friend,  a  Democrat,  as  Mr.  Atwood  describes 
himself,  of  nearly  fifty  years'  standing  —  incline  him 
to  mercy,  where  it  would  have  been  fatal  to  his  sense 
of  right.  He  took  decided  ground  against  Mr.  At 
wood.  The  convention  met  again,  and  nominated 
another  candidate.  Mr.  Atwood  went  into  the  field  as 
the  candidate  of  the  antislavery  party,  drew  off  a  suf 
ficient  body  of  Democrats  to  defeat  the  election  by  the 
people,  but  was  himself  defeated  in  the  legislature. 

Thus,  after  exhibiting  to  the  eyes  of  mankind  (or 
such  portion  of  mankind  as  chanced  to  be  looking  in 
that  direction)  the  absurd  spectacle  of  a  gentleman 
of  extremely  moderate  stride  attempting  a  feat  that 
would  have  baffled  a  Colossus,  —  to  support  himself, 
namely,  on  both  margins  of  the  impassable  chasm 
that  has  always  divided  the  antislavery  faction  from 
the  New  Hampshire  Democracy,  —  this  ill-fated  man 


422  LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

attempted  first  to  throw  himself  upon  one  side  of 
the  gulf,  then  on  the  other,  and  finally  tumbled  head 
long  into  the  bottomless  depth  between.  His  case 
presents  a  painful  but  very  curious  and  instructive 
instance  of  the  troubles  that  beset  weakness,  in  those 
emergencies  which  demand  steadfast  moral  strength 
and  energy  —  of  which  latter  type  of  manly  character 
there  can  be  no  truer  example  than  Franklin  Pierce. 

In  the  autumn  of  1850,  in  pursuance  of  a  vote  of 
the  people,  a  convention  assembled  at  Concord  for  the 
revision  of  the  Constitution  of  New  Hampshire.  Gen 
eral  Pierce  was  elected  its  president  by  an  almost 
unanimous  vote  —  a  very  high  mark  of  the  affection 
ate  confidence  which  the  state,  for  so  long  a  time  and 
in  such  a  variety  of  modes,  had  manifested  in  him. 
It  was  so  much  the  higher,  as  the  convention  included 
New  Hampshire's  most  eminent  citizens,  among  whom 
was  Judge  Woodbury. 

General  Pierce's  conduct,  as  presiding  officer,  was 
satisfactory  to  all  parties  ;  and  one  of  his  political  op 
ponents  (Professor  Sanborn,  of  Dartmouth  College) 
has  ably  sketched  him,  both  in  that  aspect  and  as  a 
debater. 

"  In  drawing  the  portraits  of  the  distinguished 
members  of  the  constitutional  convention,"  writes  the 
professor,  "  to  pass  Frank  Pierce  unnoticed  would  be 
as  absurd  as  to  enact  one  of  Shakspeare's  dramas  with 
out  its  principal  hero.  I  give  my  impressions  of  the 
man  as  I  saw  him  in  the  convention  ;  for  I  would  not 
undertake  to  vouch  for  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  those 
veracious  organs  of  public  sentiment,  at  the  capital, 
which  have  loaded  him  in  turn  with  indiscriminate 
praise  and  abuse.  As  a  presiding  officer,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  find  his  equal.  In  proposing  questions 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  423 

to  the  house,  he  never  hesitates  or  blunders.  In  decid 
ing  points  of  order,  he  is  both  prompt  and  impartial. 
His  treatment  of  every  member  of  the  convention  was 
characterized  by  uniform  courtesy  and  kindness.  The 
deportment  of  the  presiding  officer  of  a  deliberative 
body  usually  gives  tone  to  the  debates.  If  he  is 
harsh,  morose,  or  abrupt  in  his  manner,  the  speakers 
are  apt  to  catch  his  spirit  by  the  force  of  involuntary 
sympathy.  The  same  is  true,  to  some  extent,  of  the 
principal  debaters  in  such  a  body.  When  a  man  of 
strong  prejudices  and  harsh  temper  rises  to  address 
a  public  assembly,  his  indwelling  antipathies  speak 
from  every  feature  of  his  face  and  from  every  mo 
tion  of  his  person.  The  audience  at  once  brace  them 
selves  against  his  assaults,  and  condemn  his  opinions 
before  they  are  heard.  The  well-known  character  of 
an  orator  persuades  or  dissuades  quite  as  forcibly  as 
the  language  he  utters.  Some  men  never  rise  to  ad 
dress  a  deliberative  assembly  without  conciliating  good 
will  in  advance.  The  smile  that  plays  upon  the  speak 
er's  face  awakens  emotions  of  complacency  in  those 
who  hear,  even  before  he  speaks.  So  does  that  weight 
of  character,  which  is  the  matured  fruit  of  long  public 
services  and  acknowledged  worth,  soothe,  in  advance, 
the  irritated  and  angry  crowd. 

"  Mr.  Pierce  possesses  unquestioned  ability  as  a 
public  speaker.  Few  men,  in  our  country,  better  un 
derstand  the  means  of  swaying  a  popular  assembly, 
or  employ  them  with  greater  success.  His  forte  lies 
in  moving  the  passions  of  those  whom  he  addresses. 
He  knows  how  to  call  into  vigorous  action  both  the 
sympathies  and  antipathies  of  those  who  listen  to  him. 
I  do  not  mean  to  imply  by  these  remarks  that  his  ora 
tory  is  deficient  in  argument  or  sound  reasoning.  On 


424  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

the  contrary,  he  seizes  with  great  power  upon  the 
strong  points  of  his  subject,  and  presents  them  clearly, 
forcibly,  and  eloquently.  As  a  prompt  and  ready  de 
bater,  always  prepared  for  assault  or  defence,  he  has 
few  equals.  In  these  encounters,  he  appears  to  great 
advantage,  from  his  happy  faculty  of  turning  little 
incidents,  unexpectedly  occurring,  to  his  own  account. 
A  word  carelessly  dropped,  or  an  unguarded  allusion 
to  individuals  or  parties  by  an  opponent,  is  frequently 
converted  into  a  powerful  weapon  of  assault,  by  this 
skilful  advocate.  He  has  been  so  much  in  office  that 
he  may  be  said  to  have  been  educated  in  public  life. 
He  is  most  thoroughly  versed  in  all  the  tactics  of  de 
bate.  He  is  not  only  remarkably  fluent  in  his  elocu 
tion,  but  remarkably  correct.  He  seldom  miscalls  or 
repeats  a  word.  His  style  is  not  overloaded  with  or 
nament,  and  yet  he  draws  liberally  upon  the  treasury 
of  rhetoric.  His  figures  are  often  beautiful  and  strik 
ing,  never  incongruous.  He  is  always  listened  to  with 
respectful  attention,  if  he  does  not  always  command 
conviction.  From  his  whole  course  in  the  convention, 
a  disinterested  spectator  could  not  fail  to  form  a  very 
favorable  opinion,  not  only  of  his  talent  and  eloquence, 
but  of  his  generosity  and  magnanimity." 

Among  other  antiquated  relics  of  the  past,  and 
mouldy  types  of  prejudices  that  ought  now  to  be  for 
gotten,  and  of  which  it  was  the  object  of  the  present 
convention  to  purge  the  Constitution  of  New  Hamp 
shire,  there  is  a  provision  that  certain  state  offices 
should  be  held  only  by  Protestants.  Since  General 
Pierce's  nomination  for  the  presidency,  the  existence 
of  this  religious  test  has  been  brought  as  a  charge 
against  him,  as  if,  in  spite  of  his  continued  efforts  to 
remove  it,  he  were  personally  responsible  for  its  re 
maining  on  the  statute  book. 


LIFE  OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  425 

General  Pierce  has  naturally  a  strong  endowment 
of  religious  feeling.  At  no  period  of  his  life,  as  is  well 
known  to  his  friends,  have  the  sacred  relations  of  the 
human  soul  been  a  matter  of  indifference  with  him ; 
and,  of  more  recent  years,  whatever  circumstances  of 
good  or  evil  fortune  may  have  befallen  him,  they 
have  alike  served  to  deepen  this  powerful  sentiment. 
Whether  in  sorrow  or  success,  he  has  learned,  in  his 
own  behalf,  the  great  lesson,  that  religious  faith  is  the 
most  valuable  and  most  sacred  of  human  possessions  ; 
but,  with  this  sense,  there  has  come  no  narrowness  or 
illiberality,  but  a  wide-embracing  sympathy  for  the 
modes  of  Christian  worship,  and  a  reverence  for  indi 
vidual  belief,  as  a  matter  between  the  Deity  and  man's 
soul,  and  with  which  no  other  has  a  right  to  interfere. 
With  the  feeling  here  described,  and  with  his  acute 
intellectual  perception  of  the  abortive  character  of  all 
intolerant  measures,  as  defeating  their  own  ends,  it 
strikes  one  as  nothing  less  than  ludicrous  that  he 
should  be  charged  with  desiring  to  retain  this  obsolete 
enactment,  standing,  as  it  does,  as  a  merely  gratuitous 
and  otherwise  inoperative  stigma  upon  the  fair  reputa 
tion  of  his  native  state.  Even  supposing  no  higher 
motives  to  have  influenced  him,  it  would  have  sufficed 
to  secure  his  best  efforts  for  the  repeal  of  the  relig 
ious  test  that  so  many  of  the  Catholics  have  always 
been  found  in  the  advance-guard  of  freedom,  march 
ing  onward  with  the  progressive  party ;  and  that, 
whether  in  peace  or  war,  they  have  performed  for 
their  adopted  country  the  hard  toil  and  the  gallant 
services  which  she  has  a  right  to  expect  from  her  most 
faithful  citizens. 

The  truth  is  that,  ever  since  his  entrance  upon  pub 
lic  life,  on  all  occasions,  —  and  often  making  the  oc- 


426  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

casion  where  he  found  none,  —  General  Pierce  has 
done  his  utmost  to  obliterate  this  obnoxious  feature 
from  the  Constitution.  He  has  repeatedly  advocated 
the  calling  of  a  convention  mainly  for  this  purpose. 
In  that  of  1850,  he  both  spoke  and  voted  in  favor  of 
the  abolition  of  the  test,  and,  with  the  aid  of  Judge 
Woodbury  and  other  democratic  members,  attained  his 
purpose,  so  far  as  the  convention  possessed  any  power 
or  responsibility  in  the  matter.  That  the  measure  was 
ultimately  defeated  is  due  to  other  causes,  either  tem 
porary  or  of  long  continuance  ;  and  to  some  of  them 
it  is  attributable  that  the  enlightened  public  sentiment 
of  New  Hampshire  was  not,  long  since,  made  to  op 
erate  upon  this  enactment,  so  anomalous  in  the  funda 
mental  law  of  a  free  state. 

In  order  to  the  validity  of  the  amendments  passed  by 
the  convention,  it  was  necessary  that  the  people  should 
subsequently  act  upon  them,  and  pass  a  vote  of  two 
thirds  in  favor  of  their  adoption.  The  amendments 
proposed  by  the  convention  of  1850  were  numerous. 
The  Constitution  had  been  modified  in  many  and  very 
important  particulars,  in  respect  to  which  the  popular 
mind  had  not  previously  been  made  familiar,  and  on 
which  it  had  not  anticipated  the  necessity  of  passing 
judgment.  In  March,  1851,  when  the  vote  of  the  peo 
ple  was  taken  upon  these  measures,  the  Atwood  con 
troversy  was  at  its  height,  and  threw  all  matters  of  less 
immediate  interest  into  the  background.  During  the 
interval  since  the  adjournment  of  the  convention,  the 
whig  newspapers  had  been  indefatigable  in  their  at 
tempts  to  put  its  proceedings  in  an  odious  light  before 
the  people.  There  had  been  no  period,  for  many  years, 
in  which  sinister  influences  rendered  it  so  difficult  to 
draw  out  an  efficient  expression  of  the  will  of  the 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  427 

Democracy  as  on  this  occasion.  It  was  the  result 
of  all  these  obstacles  that  the  doings  of  the  constitu 
tional  convention  were  rejected  in  the  mass. 

In  the  ensuing  April,  the  convention  reassembled,  in 
order  to  receive  the  unfavorable  verdict  of  the  people 
upon  its  proposed  amendments.  At  the  suggestion  of 
General  Pierce,  the  amendment  abolishing  the  religious 
test  was  again  brought  forward,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
opposition  of  the  leading  whig  members,  was  a  second 
time  submitted  to  the  people.  Nor  did  his  struggle  in 
behalf  of  this  enlightened  movement  terminate  here. 
At  the  democratic  caucus,  in  Concord,  preliminary  to 
the  town  meeting,  he  urged  upon  his  political  friends 
the  repeal  of  the  test,  as  a  party  measure ;  and  again, 
at  the  town  meeting  itself,  while  the  balloting  was  going 
forward,  he  advocated  it  on  the  higher  ground  of  relig 
ious  freedom,  and  of  reverence  for  what  is  inviolable 
in  the  human  soul.  Had  the  amendment  passed,  the 
credit  would  have  belonged  to  no  man  more  than  to 
General  Pierce  ;  and  that  it  failed,  and  that  the  free 
Constitution  of  New  Hampshire  is  still  disgraced  by 
a  provision  which  even  monarchical  England  has  cast 
off,  is  a  responsibility  which  must  rest  elsewhere  than 
on  his  head. 

In  September,  1851,  died  that  eminent  statesman 
and  jurist,  Levi  Woodbury,  then  occupying  the  ele 
vated  post  of  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  The  connection  between  him  and  General 
Pierce,  beginning  in  the  early  youth  of  the  latter,  had 
been  sustained  through  all  the  subsequent  years.  They 
sat  together,  with  but  one  intervening  chair  between,  in 
the  national  Senate  ;  they  were  always  advocates  of  the 
eame  great  measures,  and  held,  through  life,  a  harmony 
of  opinion  and  action,  which  was  never  more  conspicu- 


428  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  FIERCE. 

ous  than  in  the  few  months  that  preceded  Judge 
Woodbury's  death.  At  a  meeting  of  the  bar,  after  his 
decease,  General  Pierce  uttered  some  remarks,  full  of 
sensibility,  in  which  he  referred  to  the  circumstances 
that  had  made  this  friendship  an  inheritance  on  his 
part.  Had  Judge  Woodbury  survived,  it  is  not  im 
probable  that  his  more  advanced  age,  his  great  public 
services,  and  equally  distinguished  zeal  in  behalf  of 
the  Union  might  have  placed  him  in  the  position  now 
occupied  by  the  subject  of  this  memoir.  Fortunate 
the  state  which,  after  losing  such  a  son,  can  still  point 
to  another,  not  less  worthy  to  take  upon  him  the  charge 
of  the  nation's  welfare. 

We  have  now  finished  our  record  of  Franklin  Pierce's 
life,  and  have  only  to  describe  the  posture  of  affairs 
which,  without  his  own  purpose  and  against  his  wish, 
has  placed  him  before  the  people  of  the  United  States 
as  a  candidate  for  the  presidency. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

HIS   NOMINATION   FOB   THE   PRESIDENCY. 

ON  the  12th  of  June,  1852,  the  democratic  national 
convention  assembled  at  Baltimore,  in  order  to  select 
a  candidate  for  the  presidency  of  the  United  States. 
Many  names,  eminently  distinguished  in  peace  and 
war,  had  been  brought  before  the  public,  during  several 
months  previous  ;  and  among  them,  though  by  no 
means  occupying  a  very  prominent  place,  was  the 
name  of  Franklin  Pierce.  In  January  of  this  year, 
the  Democracy  of  New  Hampshire  had  signified  its 
preference  of  General  Pierce  as  a  presidential  candi* 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  429 

date  in  the  approaching  canvass  —  a  demonstration 
which  drew  from  him  the  following  response,  addressed 
to  his  friend,  Mr.  Atherton  :  — 

"I  am  far  from  being  insensible  to  the  generous 
confidence  so  often  manifested  towards  me  by  the 
people  of  this  state ;  and  although  the  object  indicated 
in  the  resolution,  having  particular  reference  to  myself, 
be  not  one  of  desire  on  my  part,  the  expression  is  not 
on  that  account  less  gratifying. 

"  Doubtless  the  spontaneous  and  just  appreciation  of 
an  intelligent  people  is  the  best  earthly  reward  for 
earnest  and  cheerful  sevices  rendered  to  one's  state  and 
country ;  and  while  it  is  a  matter  of  unfeigned  regret 
that  my  life  has  been  so  barren  of  usefulness,  I  shall 
ever  hold  this  and  similar  tributes  among  my  most 
cherished  recollections. 

"  To  these,  my  sincere  and  grateful  acknowledgments, 
I  desire  to  add  that  the  same  motives  which  induced 
me,  several  years  ago,  to  retire  from  public  life,  and 
which  since  that  time  controlled  my  judgment  in  this 
respect,  now  impel  me  to  say  that  the  use  of  my  name 
in  any  event,  before  the  democratic  national  conven 
tion  at  Baltimore,  to  which  you  are  a  delegate,  would 
be  utterly  repugnant  to  my  taste  and  wishes." 

The  sentiments  expressed  in  the  above  letter  were 
genuine,  and  from  his  heart.  He  had  looked  long  and 
closely  at  the  effects  of  high  public  station  on  the  char 
acter  and  happiness,  and  on  what  is  the  innermost  and 
dearest  part  of  a  man's  possessions  —  his  independence ; 
and  he  had  satisfied  himself  that  office,  however  ele 
vated,  should  be  avoided  for  one's  own  sake,  or  ac 
cepted  only  as  a  good  citizen  would  make  any  other 
sacrifice,  at  the  call  and  at  the  need  of  his  country. 

As  the  time  for  the  assembling  of  the  national  con- 


430  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

vention  drew  near,  there  were  other  sufficient  indica 
tions  of  his  sincerity  in  declining  a  stake  in  the  great 
game.  A  circular  letter  was  addressed,  by  Major  Scott, 
of  Virginia,  to  the  distinguished  Democrats  whose 
claims  had  heretofore  been  publicly  discussed,  request 
ing  a  statement  of  their  opinions  on  several  points,  and 
inquiring  what  would  be  the  course  of  each  of  these 
gentlemen,  in  certain  contingencies,  in  case  of  his  at 
taining  the  presidency.  These  queries,  it  may  be  pre 
sumed,  were  of  such  a  nature  that  General  Pierce 
might  have  answered  them,  had  he  seen  fit  to  do  so, 
to  the  satisfaction  of  Major  Scott  himself,  or  to  that  of 
the  southern  democratic  party,  whom  it  seemed  his 
purpose  to  represent.  With  not  more  than  one  ex 
ception,  the  other  statesmen  and  soldiers,  to  whom  the 
circular  had  been  sent,  made  a  response.  General 
Pierce  preserved  an  unbroken  silence.  It  was  equiv 
alent  to  the  withdrawal  of  all  claims  which  he  might 
be  supposed  to  possess,  in  reference  to  the  contem 
plated  office;  and  he  thereby  repeated,  to  the  dele 
gates  of  the  national  party,  the  same  avowal  of  dis 
taste  for  public  life  which  he  had  already  made  known 
to  the  Democracy  of  his  native  state.  He  had  thus 
done  everything  in  his  power,  actively  or  passively, — 
everything  that  he  could  have  done,  without  showing 
such  an  estimate  of  his  position  before  the  country  as 
was  inconsistent  with  the  modesty  of  his  character,  — 
to  avoid  the  perilous  and  burdensome  honor  of  the 
candidacy. 

The  convention  met,  at  the  date  above  mentioned, 
and  continued  its  sessions  during  four  days.  Thirty- 
five  ballotings  were  held,  with  a  continually  decreasing 
prospect  that  the  friends  of  any  one  of  the  gentlemen 
hitherto  prominent  before  the  people  would  succeed  in 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  431 

obtaining  the  two  thirds  vote  that  was  requisite  for  a 
nomination.  Thus  far,  not  a  vote  had  been  thrown 
for  General  Pierce ;  but,  at  the  thirty-sixth  ballot,  the 
delegation  of  old  Virginia  brought  forward  his  name. 
In  the  course  of  several  more  trials,  his  strength  in 
creased,  very  gradually  at  first,  but  afterwards  with  a 
growing  impetus,  until,  at  the  forty-ninth  ballot,  the 
votes  were  for  Franklin  Pierce  two  hundred  and  eighty- 
two,  and  eleven  for  all  other  candidates.  Thus  Frank 
lin  Pierce  became  the  nominee  of  the  convention ;  and 
as  quickly  as  the  lightning  flash  could  blazon  it  abroad 
his  name  was  on  every  tongue,  from  end  to  end  of  this 
vast  country.  Within  an  hour  he  grew  to  be  illus 
trious. 

It  would  be  a  pretension,  which  we  do  not  mean  to 
put  forward,  to  assert  that,  whether  considering  the 
length  and  amount  of  his  public  services,  or  his  prom 
inence  before  the  country,  General  Pierce  stood  on 
equal  ground  with  several  of  the  distinguished  men 
whose  claims,  to  use  the  customary  phrase,  had  been 
rejected  in  favor  of  his  own.  But  no  man,  be  his  pub 
lic  services  or  sacrifices  what  they  might,  ever  did  or 
ever  could  possess,  in  the  slightest  degree,  what  we 
may  term  a  legitimate  claim  to  be  elevated  to  the 
rulership  of  a  free  people.  The  nation  would  degrade 
itself,  and  violate  every  principle  upon  which  its  insti 
tutions  are  founded,  by  offering  its  majestic  obedience 
to  one  of  its  citizens  as  a  reward  for  whatever  splendor 
of  achievement.  The  conqueror  may  assert  a  claim, 
such  as  it  is,  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  whom  he 
subjugates  ;  but,  with  us  Americans,  when  a  statesman 
romes  to  the  chief  direction  of  affairs,  it  is  at  the  sum 
mons  of  the  nation,  addressed  to  the  servant  whom  it 
deems  best  fitted  to  spend  his  wisdom,  his  strength, 


432  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

and  his  life  in  its  behalf.  On  this  principle,  which  is 
obviously  the  correct  one,  a  candidate's  previous  ser 
vices  are  entitled  to  consideration  only  as  they  indicate 
the  qualities  which  may  enable  him  to  render  higher 
services  in  the  position  which  his  countrymen  choose 
that  he  shall  occupy.  What  he  has  done  is  of  no  im 
portance,  except  as  proving  what  he  can  do.  And  it 
is  on  this  score,  because  they  see  in  his  public  course 
the  irrefragable  evidences  of  patriotism,  integrity,  and 
courage,  and  because  they  recognize  in  him  the  noble 
gift  of  natural  authority,  and  have  a  prescience  of  the 
stately  endowment  of  administrative  genius,  that  his 
fellow-citizens  are  about  to  summon  Franklin  Pierce  to 
the  presidency.  To  those  who  know  him  well,  the 
event  comes,  not  like  accident,  but  as  a  consummation 
which  might  have  been  anticipated,  from  its  innate  fit 
ness,  and  as  the  final  step  of  a  career  which,  all  along, 
has  tended  thitherward. 

It  is  not  as  a  reward  that  he  will  take  upon  him  the 
mighty  burden  of  this  office,  of  which  the  toil  and  awful 
responsibility  whiten  the  statesman's  head,  and  in 
which,  as  in  more  than  one  instance  we  have  seen,  the 
warrior  encounters  a  deadlier  risk  than  in  the  battle 
field.  When  General  Pierce  received  the  news  of  his 
nomination,  it  affected  him  with  no  thrill  of  joy,  but  a 
sadness,  which,  for  many  days,  was  perceptible  in  his 
deportment.  It  awoke  in  his  heart  the  sense  of  relig 
ious  dependence  —  a  sentiment  that  has  been  growing 
continually  stronger,  through  all  the  trials  and  ex 
periences  of  his  life ;  and  there  was  nothing  feigned 
in  that  passage  of  his  beautiful  letter,  accepting  the 
nomination,  in  which  he  expresses  his  reliance  upon 
heavenly  support. 

The  committee,  appointed  by  the  Baltimore  conven- 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  433 

tion,  conveyed  to  him  the  intelligence  of  his  nomina« 
tion  in  the  following  terms  :  — 

"  A  national  convention  of  the  democratic  republi 
can  party,  which  met  in  Baltimore  on  the  first  Tues 
day  in  June,  unanimously  nominated  you  as  a  candi 
date  for  the  high  trust  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  We  have  been  delegated  to  acquaint  you  with 
the  nomination,  and  earnestly  to  request  that  you  will 
accept  it.  Persuaded  as  we  are  that  this  office  should 
never  be  pursued  by  an  unchastened  ambition,  it  can 
not  be  refused  by  a  dutiful  patriotism. 

"  The  circumstances  under  which  you  will  be  pre 
sented  for  the  canvass  of  your  countrymen  seem  to  us 
propitious  to  the  interests  which  the  constitution  in 
trusts  to  our  Federal  Union,  and  must  be  auspicious 
to  your  own  name.  You  come  before  the  people  with 
out  the  impulse  of  personal  wishes,  and  free  from 
selfish  expectations.  You  are  identified  with  none  of 
the  distractions  which  have  recently  disturbed  our 
country,  whilst  you  are  known  to  be  faithful  to  the 
constitution  —  to  all  its  guaranties  and  compromises. 
You  will  be  free  to  exercise  your  tried  abilities,  within 
the  path  of  duty,  in  protecting  that  repose  we  happily 
enjoy,  and  in  giving  efficacy  and  control  to  those  car 
dinal  principles  that  have  already  illustrated  the  party 
which  has  now  selected  you  as  its  leader  —  principles 
that  regard  the  security  and  prosperity  of  the  whole 
country,  and  the  paramount  power  of  its  laws,  as  in- 
dissolubly  associated  with  the  perpetuity  of  our  civil 
and  religious  liberties. 

"  The  convention  did  not  pretermit  the  duty  of  reit 
erating  those  principles,  and  you  will  find  them  promi 
nently  set  forth  in  the  resolutions  it  adopted.  To 
these  we  respectfully  invite  your  attention. 

VOL.  xii.  28 


434  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

"  It  is  firmly  believed  that  to  your  talents  and  pa 
triotism  the  security  of  our  holy  Union,  with  its  ex 
panded  and  expanding  interests,  may  be  wisely  trusted, 
and  that,  amid  all  the  perils  which  may  assail  the  con 
stitution,  you  will  have  the  heart  to  love  and  the  arm 
to  defend  it." 

We  quote  likewise  General  Pierce's  reply :  — 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  your  personal 
kindness  in  presenting  me,  this  day,  your  letter,  offi 
cially  informing  me  of  my  nomination,  by  the  demo 
cratic  national  convention,  as  a  candidate  for  the  pres 
idency  of  the  United  States.  The  surprise  with  which 
I  received  the  intelligence  of  my  nomination  was  not 
unmingled  with  painful  solicitude ;  and  yet  it  is  proper 
for  me  to  say  that  the  manner  in  which  it  was  con 
ferred  was  peculiarly  gratifying. 

"  The  delegation  from  New  Hampshire,  with  all  the 
glow  of  state  pride,  and  with  all  the  warmth  of  per 
sonal  regard,  would  not  have  submitted  my  name  to 
the  convention,  nor  would  they  have  cast  a  vote  for 
me,  under  circumstances  other  than  those  which  oc 
curred. 

"I  shall  always  cherish  with  pride  and  gratitude 
the  recollection  of  the  fact  that  the  voice  which  first 
pronounced,  and  pronounced  alone,  came  from  the 
Mother  of  States  —  a  pride  and  gratitude  rising  above 
any  consequences  that  can  betide  me  personally.  May 
I  not  regard  it  as  a  fact  pointing  to  the  overthrow  of 
sectional  jealousies,  and  looking  to  the  permanent  life 
and  vigor  of  the  Union,  cemented  by  the  blood  of 
those  who  have  passed  to  their  reward  ?  —  a  Union 
wonderful  in  its  formation,  boundless  in  its  hopes, 
amazing  in  its  destiny. 

"  I  accept  the  nomination,  relying  upon  an  abiding 


LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE.  435 

devotion  to  the  interests,  honor,  and  glory  of  the  whole 
country,  but,  above  and  beyond  all,  upon  a  Power  su 
perior  to  all  human  might  —  a  Power  which,  from  the 
first  gun  of  the  Revolution,  in  every  crisis  through 
which  we  have  passed,  in  every  hour  of  acknowledged 
peril,  when  the  dark  clouds  had  shut  down  over  us, 
has  interposed  as  if  to  baffle  human  wisdom,  outmarch 
human  forecast,  and  bring  out  of  darkness  the  rain 
bow  of  promise.  Weak  myself,  faith  and  hope  repose 
there  in  security. 

"  I  accept  the  nomination  upon  the  platform  adopted 
by  the  convention,  not  because  this  is  expected  of  me 
as  a  candidate,  but  because  the  principles  it  embraces 
command  the  approbation  of  my  judgment ;  and  with 
them,  I  believe  I  can  safely  say,  there  has  been  no 
word  or  act  of  my  life  in  conflict." 

The  news  of  his  nomination  went  abroad  over  the 
Union,  and,  far  and  wide,  there  came  a  response,  in 
which  was  distinguishable  a  truer  appreciation  of 
some  of  General  Pierce's  leading  traits  than  could 
have  been  anticipated,  considering  the  unobtrusive 
tenor  of  his  legislative  life,  and  the  lapse  of  time  since 
he  had  entirely  withdrawn  himself  from  the  nation's 
eye.  It  was  the  marvellous  and  mystic  influence  of 
character,  in  regard  to  which  the  judgment  of  the  peo 
ple  is  so  seldom  found  erroneous,  and  which  conveys 
the  perception  of  itself  through  some  medium  higher 
and  deeper  than  the  intellect.  Everywhere  the  coun 
try  knows  that  a  man  of  steadfast  will,  true  heart,  and 
generous  qualities  has  been  brought  forward,  to  re 
ceive  the  suffrages  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

He  comes  before  the  people  of  the  United  States  at 
a  remarkable  era  in  the  history  of  this  country  and  of 
the  world.  The  two  great  parties  of  the  nation  ap- 


436  LIFE   OF  FRANKLIN  PIERCE. 

pear —  at  least  to  an  observer  somewhat  removed  from 
both  —  to  have  nearly  merged  into  one  another ;  for 
they  preserve  the  attitude  of  political  antagonism 
rather  through  the  effect  of  their  old  organizations 
than  because  any  great  and  radical  principles  are  at 
present  in  dispute  between  them.  The  measures  ad- 
vocated  by  the  one  party,  and  resisted  by  the  other, 
through  a  long  series  of  years,  have  now  ceased  to  be 
the  pivots  on  which  the  election  turns.  The  promi 
nent  statesmen,  so  long  identified  with  those  measures, 
will  henceforth  relinquish  their  controlling  influence 
over  public  affairs.  Both  parties,  it  may  likewise  be 
said,  are  united  in  one  common  purpose,  —  that  of  pre 
serving  our  sacred  Union,  as  the  immovable  basis  from 
which  the  destinies,  not  of  America  alone,  but  of  man 
kind  at  large,  may  be  carried  upward  and  consum 
mated.  And  thus  men  stand  together,  in  unwonted 
quiet  and  harmony,  awaiting  the  new  movement  in  ad 
vance  which  all  these  tokens  indicate. 

It  remains  for  the  citizens  of  this  great  country  to 
decide,  within  the  next  few  weeks,  whether  they  will 
retard  the  steps  of  human  progress  by  placing  at  its 
head  an  illustrious  soldier,  indeed,  a  patriot,  and  one 
indelibly  stamped  into  the  history  of  the  past,  but  who 
has  already  done  his  work,  and  has  not  in  him  the 
spirit  of  the  present  or  of  the  coming  time  ;  or 
whether  they  will  put  their  trust  in  a  new  man,  whom 
a  life  of  energy  and  various  activity  has  tested,  but 
not  worn  out,  and  advance  with  him  into  the  auspi 
cious  epoch  upon  which  we  are  about  to  enter. 


NOTE. 


WE  have  done  far  less  than  justice  to  Franklin  Pierce's  college 
standing,  in  our  statement  on  page  355.  Some  circumstances 
connected  with  this  matter  are  too  characteristic  not  to  be  re 
ported. 

During  the  first  two  years,  Pierce  was  extremely  inattentive  to 
his  college  duties,  bestowing  only  such  modicum  of  time  upon 
them  as  was  requisite  to  supply  the  merest  superficial  acquaint 
ance  with  the  course  of  study  for  the  recitation  room.  The  con 
sequence  was  that  when  the  relative  standing  of  the  members  of 
the  class  was  first  authoritatively  ascertained,  in  the  junior  year, 
he  found  himself  occupying  precisely  the  lowest  position  in  point 
of  scholarship.  In  the  first  mortification  of  wounded  pride,  he 
resolved  never  to  attend  another  recitation,  and  accordingly  ab 
sented  himself  from  college  exercises  of  all  kinds  for  several  days, 
expecting  and  desiring  that  some  form  of  punishment,  such  as 
suspension  or  expulsion,  would  be  the  result.  The  faculty  of  the 
college,  however,  with  a  wise  lenity,  took  no  notice  of  this  be 
havior  ;  and  at  last,  having  had  time  to  grow  cool,  and  moved  by 
the  grief  of  his  friend  Little  and  another  classmate,  Pierce  deter 
mined  to  resume  the  routine  of  college  duties.  "  But,"  said  he 
to  his  friends,  "  if  I  do  so,  you  shall  see  a  change  !  " 

Accordingly,  from  that  tune  forward,  he  devoted  himself  to 
study.  His  mind,  having  run  wild  for  so  long  a  period,  could  be 
reclaimed  only  by  the  severest  efforts  of  an  iron  resolution  ;  and 
for  three  months  afterwards,  he  rose  at  four  in  the  morning,  toiled 
all  clay  over  his  books,  and  retired  only  at  midnight,  allowing 
himself  but  four  hours  for  sleep.  With  habit  and  exercise,  he 
acquired  command  over  his  intellectual  powers,  and  was  no  longer 
under  the  necessity  of  application  so  intense.  But  from  the  mo 
ment  when  he  made  his  resolve  until  the  close  of  his  college  life, 
he  never  incurred  a  censure,  never  was  absent  (and  then  un- 


438  NOTE. 

avoidably)  but  from  two  college  exercises,  never  went  into  the 
recitation  room  without  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  subject 
to  be  recited,  and  finally  graduated  as  the  third  scholar  of  his 
class.  Nothing  save  the  low  standard  of  his  previous  scholarship 
prevented  his  taking  a  yet  higher  rank. 

The  moral  of  this  little  story  lies  in  the  stern  and  continued 
exercise  of  self-controlling  will,  which  redeemed  him  from  indo 
lence,  completely  changed  the  aspect  of  his  character,  and  made 
this  the  turning  point  of  his  life. 


APPENDIX. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

OF 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 


THE  lives  of  great  men  are  written  gradually.  It 
often  takes  as  long  to  construct  a  true  biography  as  it 
took  the  person  who  is  the  subject  of  it  to  complete 
his  career ;  and  when  the  work  is  done,  it  is  found  to 
consist  of  many  volumes,  produced  by  a  variety  of  au 
thors.  We  receive  views  from  different  observers,  and 
by  putting  them  together  are  able  to  form  our  own  es 
timate.  What  the  man  really  was  not  even  himself 
could  know;  much  less  can  we.  Hence  all  that  we 
accomplish,  in  any  case,  is  to  approximate  to  the  re 
ality.  While  we  flatter  ourselves  that  we  have  im 
printed  on  our  minds  an  exact  image  of  the  individ 
ual,  we  actually  secure  nothing  but  a  typical  likeness. 
This  likeness,  however,  is  amplified  and  strengthened 
by  successive  efforts  to  paint  a  correct  portrait.  If 
the  faces  of  people  belonging  to  several  generations  of 
a  family  be  photographed  upon  one  plate,  they  com 
bine  to  form  a  single  distinct  countenance,  which  shows 
a  general  resemblance  to  them  all :  in  somewhat  the 
same  way,  every  sketch  of  a  distinguished  man  helps 
to  fix  the  lines  of  that  typical  semblance  of  him  which 
is  all  that  the  world  can  hope  to  preserve. 


442  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

This  principle  applies  to  the  case  of  Hawthorne, 
notwithstanding  that  the  details  of  his  career  are 
comparatively  few,  and  must  be  marshalled  in  much 
the  same  way  each  time  that  it  is  attempted  to  re 
view  them.  The  veritable  history  of  his  life  would 
be  the  history  of  his  mental  development,  recording, 
like  Wordsworth's  "  Prelude,"  the  growth  of  a  poet's 
mind ;  and  on  glancing  back  over  it  he  too  might  have 
said,  in  Wordsworth's  phrases :  — 

"  Wisdom  and  spirit  of  the  universe  ! 


By  day  or  star-light  thus  from  my  first  dawn 
Of  childhood  didst  thou  intertwine  for  me 
The  passions  that  build  up  the  human  soul; 
Not  with  the  mean  and  vulgar  works  of  man, 
But  with  high  objects,  with  enduring  things  — 
With  life  and  nature,  purifying  thus 
The  elements  of  feeling  and  of  thought, 
And  sanctifying  by  such  discipline 
Both  pain  and  fear,  until  we  recognize 
A  grandeur  in  the  beatings  of  the  heart." 

But  a  record  of  that  kind,  except  where  an  autobiog 
raphy  exists,  can  be  had  only  by  indirect  means.  We 
must  resort  to  tracing  the  outward  facts  of  the  life, 
and  must  try  to  infer  the  interior  relations. 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne  was  born  on  the  Fourth  of 
July,  1804,  at  Salem,  Massachusetts,  in  a  house  num 
bered  twenty-one,  Union  Street.  The  house  is  still 
standing,  although  somewhat  reduced  in  size  and  still 
more  reduced  in  circumstances.  The  character  of  the 
neighborhood  has  declined  very  much  since  the  period 
when  Hawthorne  involuntarily  became  a  resident  there. 
As  the  building  stands  to-day  it  makes  the  impression 
simply  of  an  exceedingly  plain,  exceedingly  old-fash 
ioned,  solid,  comfortable  abode,  which  in  its  prime 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  443 

must  have  been  regarded  as  proof  of  a  sufficient  but 
modest  prosperity  on  the  part  of  the  occupant.  It  is 
clapboarded,  is  two  stories  high,  and  has  a  gambrel 
roof,  immediately  beneath  which  is  a  large  garret  that 
doubtless  served  the  boy-child  well  as  a  place  for  play 
and  a  stimulant  for  the  sense  of  mystery.  A  single 
massive  chimney,  rising  from  the  centre,  emphasizes 
by  its  style  the  antiquity  of  the  building,  and  has  the 
air  of  holding  it  together.  The  cobble-stoned  street 
in  front  is  narrow,  and  although  it  runs  from  the  house 
towards  the  water-side,  where  once  an  extensive  com 
merce  was  carried  on,  and  debouches  not  far  from  the 
Custom  House  where  Hawthorne  in  middle  life  found 
plenty  of  occupation  as  Surveyor,  it  is  now  silent  and 
deserted. 

He  was  the  second  of  three  children  born  to  Nathan 
iel  Hathorne,  sea-captain,  and  Elizabeth  Clarke  Man 
ning.  The  eldest  was  Elizabeth  Manning  Hathorne, 
\vho  came  into  the  world  March  7,  1802  ;  the  last  was 
Maria  Louisa,  born  January  9,  1808,  and  lost  in  the 
steamer  Henry  Clay,  which  was  burned  on  the  Hud 
son  River,  July  27,  1852.  Elizabeth  survived  all  the 
members  of  the  family,  dying  on  the  1st  of  January, 
1883,  when  almost  eighty-one  years  old,  at  Montserrat, 
a  hamlet  in  the  township  of  Beverly,  near  Salem.  In 
early  manhood,  certainly  at  about  the  time  when  he 
began  to  publish,  the  young  Nathaniel  changed  the 
spelling  of  his  surname  to  Hawthorne ;  an  alteration 
also  adopted  by  his  sisters.  This  is  believed  to  have 
been  merely  a  return  to  a  mode  of  spelling  practised 
by  the  English  progenitors  of  the  line,  although  none 
of  the  American  ancestors  had  sanctioned  it. 

"  The  fact  that  he  was  born  in  Salem,"  writes  Dr. 
George  B.  Loring,  who  knew  him  as  a  fellow-towns* 


144  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

man,  "  may  not  amount  to  much  to  other  people,  but 
it  amounted  to  a  great  deal  to  him.  The  sturdy  and 
defiant  spirit  of  his  progenitor,  who  first  landed  on 
these  shores,  found  a  congenial  abode  among  the  people 
of  Naumkeag,  after  having  vainly  endeavored  to  ac 
commodate  itself  to  the  more  imposing  ecclesiasticism 
of  Winthrop  and  his  colony  at  Trimountain,  and  of 
Endicott  at  his  new  home.  He  was  a  stern  Separatist 
.  .  .  but  he  was  also  a  warrior,  a  politician,  a  legal 
adviser,  a  merchant,  an  orator  with  persuasive  speech. 
.  .  .  He  had  great  powers  of  mind  and  body,  and 
forms  a  conspicuous  figure  in  that  imposing  and  he 
roic  group  which  stands  around  the  cradle  of  New 
England.  The  generations  of  the  family  that  followed 
took  active  and  prominent  part  in  the  manly  adven 
tures  which  marked  our  entire  colonial  period.  .  .  . 
It  was  among  the  family  traditions  gathered  from  the 
Indian  wars,  the  tragic  and  awful  spectre  of  the  witch 
craft  delusion,  the  wild  life  of  the  privateer,  that  he 
[Nathaniel]  first  saw  the  light." 

The  progenitor  here  referred  to  is  William  Ha- 
thorne,  who  came  to  America  with  John  Winthrop  in 
1630.  He  had  grants  of  land  in  Dorchester,  but  was 
considered  so  desirable  a  citizen  that  the  town  of  Sa 
lem  offered  him  other  lands  if  he  would  settle  there ; 
which  he  did.  It  has  not  been  ascertained  from  what 
place  William  Hathorne  originally  came.  His  elder 
brother  Robert  is  known  to  have  written  to  him  in 
1653  from  the  village  of  Bray,  in  Berkshire,  Eng 
land  ;  but  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  says  in  the  "Ameri 
can  Note-Books  "  that  William  was  a  younger  brother 
of  a  family  having  for  its  seat  a  place  called  Wigcastle, 
in  Wiltshire.  He  became,  however,  a  person  of  note 
and  of  great  usefulness  in  the  community  with  which 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  445 

he  cast  his  lot,  in  the  new  England.  Hathorne  Street 
in  Salem  perpetuates  his  name  to-day,  as  Lathrop 
Street  does  that  of  Captain  Thomas  Lathrop,  who 
commanded  one  of  the  companies  of  Essex  militia, 
when  John  Hathorne  was  quartermaster  of  the  forces  ; 
Thomas  Lathrop,  who  marched  his  men  to  Deerfield 
in  1675,  to  protect  frontier  inhabitants  from  the  In 
dians,  and  perished  with  his  whole  troop,  in  the  mas 
sacre  at  Bloody  Brook.  The  year  after  that,  William 
Hathorne  also  took  the  field  against  the  Indians,  in 
Maine,  and  conducted  a  highly  successful  campaign 
there,  under  great  hardships.  He  had  been  the  cap 
tain  of  the  first  military  organization  in  Salem,  and 
rose  to  be  major.  He  served  for  a  number  of  years 
as  deputy  in  the  Great  and  General  Court ;  was  a  tax- 
collector,  a  magistrate,  and  a  bold  advocate  of  colo 
nial  self-government.  Although  opposed  to  religious 
persecution,  as  a  magistrate  he  inflicted  cruelties  on 
the  Quakers,  causing  a  woman  on  one  occasion  to  be 
whipped  through  Salem,  Boston,  and  Dedham.  "  The 
figure  of  that  first  ancestor,"  Hawthorne  wrote  in 
"  The  Custom  House,"  "  invested  by  family  tradition 
with  a  dim  and  dusky  grandeur,  was  present  to  my 
boyish  imagination  as  far  back  as  I  can  remember ;  " 
so  that  it  is  by  no  means  idle  to  reckon  the  history 
of  his  own  family  as  among  the  important  elements 
influencing  the  bent  of  his  genius.  John,  the  son  of 
William,  was  likewise  a  public  character  ;  he,  too,  be 
came  a  representative,  a  member  of  the  Governor's 
council,  a  magistrate  and  a  military  officer,  and  saw 
active  service  as  a  soldier  in  the  expedition  which  he 
headed  against  St.  John,  in  1696.  But  he  is  chiefly 
remembered  as  the  judge  who  presided  over  the  witch- 
craft  trials  and  displayed  great  harshness  and  bigotry 


446 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 


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148  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

in  his  treatment  of  the  prisoners.  His  descendants 
did  not  retain  the  position  in  public  affairs  which  had 
been  held  by  his  father  and  himself  ;  and  for  the  most 
part  they  were  sea-faring  men.  One  of  them,  indeed, 
Daniel  —  the  grandfather  of  Nathaniel  —  figured  as  a 
privateer  captain  in  the  Revolution,  fighting  one  bat 
tle  with  a  British  troop-ship  off  the  coast  of  Portugal, 
in  which  he  was  wounded  ;  but  the  rest  led  the  obscure 
though  hardy  and  semi  -  romantic  lives  of  maritime 
traders  sailing  to  Africa,  India,  or  Brazil.  The  priva- 
teersman  had  among  his  eight  children  three  boys,  one 
of  whom,  Nathaniel,  was  the  father  of  the  author,  and 
died  of  fever  in  Surinam,  in  the  spring  of  1808,  at  the 
age  of  thirty-three. 

The  founders  of  the  American  branch  were  men  of 
independent  character,  proud,  active,  energetic,  capa 
ble  of  extreme  sternness  and  endowed  with  passionate 
natures,  no  doubt.  But  they  were  men  of  affairs ; 
they  touched  the  world  on  the  practical  side,  and,  even 
during  \he  decline  of  the  family  fortunes,  continued  to 
do  so.  All  at  once,  in  the  personality  of  the  younger 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  this  energy  which  persisted  in 
them  reversed  its  direction,  and  found  a  new  outlet 
through  the  channel  of  literary  expression.  We  must 
suppose  that  he  included  among  his  own  characteristics 
all  those  of  his  predecessors ;  their  innate  force,  their 
endurance,  their  capacity  for  impassioned  feeling ;  but 
in  him  these  elements  were  fused  by  a  finer  prevailing 
quality,  and  held  in  firm  balance  by  his  rare  tempera- 
Jient.  This  must  be  borne  in  mind,  if  we  would  un 
derstand  the  conjunction  of  opposite  traits  in  him.  It 
was  one  of  his  principles  to  guard  against  being  run 
away  with  by  his  imagination,  and  to  cultivate  in  prac 
tical  affairs  what  he  called  "  a  morose  common  sense." 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  449 

There  has  been  attributed  to  him  by  some  of  those 
who  knew  him  a  certain  good-humored  gruffness, 
which  might  be  explained  as  a  heritage  from  the  self- 
assertive  vitality  of  his  ancestors.  While  at  Liver 
pool  he  wrote  to  one  of  his  intimates  in  this  country, 
and  in  doing  so  made  reference  to  another  acquaint 
ance  as  a  "wretch,"  to  be  away  from  whom  made  exile 
endurable.  The  letter  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
acquaintance  thus  stigmatized  long  after  Hawthorne 
was  in  his  grave  ;  but  he  declared  himself  to  be  in  no 
wise  disturbed  by  it,  because  he  knew  that  the  re 
mark  was  not  meant  seriously,  being  only  one  of  the 
occasional  explosions  of  a  "  sea  -  dog "  forcefulness, 
which  had  come  into  the  writer's  blood  from  his  skip 
per  forefathers.  Hawthorne  had,  in  fact,  parted  on 
friendly  terms  from  the  gentleman  of  whom  he  thus 
wrote.  On  the  other  hand  we  have  the  traits  of  sensi 
tiveness,  great  delicacy,  reserve  and  reverie,  drawn 
from  both  his  father  and  his  mother.  Captain  Ha- 
thorne  had  been  a  man  of  fine  presence,  handsome, 
kindly,  and  rather  silent ;  a  reader,  likewise  ;  and  his 
son's  resemblance  to  him  was  so  marked  that  a  strange 
sailor  stopped  Hawthorne  on  the  steps  of  the  Salem 
Custom  House,  many  years  afterward,  to  ask  him  if 
he  were  not  a  son  or  nephew  of  the  Captain,  whom  he 
had  known. 

His  mother  belonged  to  an  excellent  family,  the 
Mannings,  of  English  stock,  settled  in  Salem  and 
Ipswich  ever  since  1680,  and  still  well  represented  in 
the  former  place.  She,  too,  was  a  very  reserved  per 
son  ;  had  a  stately,  aristocratic  manner ;  is  remem 
bered  as  possessing  a  peculiar  and  striking  beauty. 
Her  education  was  of  that  simple,  austere,  but  judi 
cious  and  perfected  kind  that  —  without  taking  any 

VOL.  xii.  29 


450  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

very  wide  range  —  gave  to  New  England  women  in 
the  earlier  part  of  this  century  a  sedate  freedom  and 
a  cultivated  judgment,  which  all  the  assumed  im 
provements  in  pedagogy  and  the  general  relations  of 
men  and  women  since  then  have  hardly  surpassed. 
She  was  a  pious  woman,  a  sincere  and  devoted  wife,  a 
mother  whose  teachings  could  not  fail  to  impress  upon 
her  children  a  bias  towards  the  best  things  in  life. 
Nathaniel's  sister  Elizabeth,  although  a  recluse  to  the 
end  of  her  days,  and  wholly  unknown  to  the  public, 
gave  in  her  own  case  evidence  indisputable  of  the  fine 
influences  which  had  moulded  her  own  childhood  and 
that  of  her  brother.  She  showed  a  quiet,  unspoiled, 
and  ardent  love  of  Nature,  and  was  to  the  last  not 
only  an  assiduous  reader  of  books  but  also  a  very 
discriminating  one.  The  range  of  her  reading  was 
very  wide,  but  she  never  made  any  more  display  of  it 
than  Hawthorne  did  of  his.  An  intuitive  judgment 
of  character  was  hers,  which  was  really  startling  at 
times :  merely  from  the  perusal  of  a  book  or  the  in 
spection  of  a  portrait,  she  would  arrive  at  accurate 
estimates  of  character  which  revealed  a  power  of  facile 
and  comprehensive  insight;  and  her  letters,  even  in 
old  age,  flowed  spontaneously  into  utterance  of  the 
same  finished  kind  that  distinguished  Nathaniel  Haw 
thorne's  epistolary  style.  How  fresh  and  various,  too, 
was  her  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  world !  For 
many  years  she  had  not  gone  farther  from  her  se 
cluded  abode  in  a  farm  -  house  at  Montserrat,  than 
to  Beverly  or  Salem  ;  yet  I  remember  that,  only  six 
months  before  her  death,  she  wrote  a  letter  to  her 
niece,  a  large  part  of  which  was  devoted  to  the  cam 
paign  of  the  English  in  Egypt,  then  progressing :  with 
a  lively  and  clear  comprehension  she  discussed  the 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  451 

difficulties  of  the  situation,  and  expressed  the  utmost 
concern  for  the  success  of  the  English  army,  at  the 
same  time  that  she  laughed  at  herself  for  displaying, 
as  an  old  woman,  so  much  anxiety  about  the  matter. 
Now,  a  mother  who  could  bring  up  her  daughter  in 
such  a  way  as  to  make  all  this  possible  and  natural, 
must  be  given  much  credit  for  her  share  in  develop 
ing  an  illustrious  son.  Let  us  not  forget  that  it  was 
to  his  mother  that  Goethe  owed  in  good  measure  the 
foundation  of  his  greatness.  Mrs.  Hathorne  had 
large,  very  luminous  gray  eyes,  which  were  repro 
duced  in  her  son's ;  so  that,  on  both  sides,  his  parent 
age  entitled  him  to  the  impressive  personal  appearance 
which  distinguished  him.  In  mature  life  he  became 
somewhat  estranged  from  her,  but  their  mutual  love 
was  presumably  suspended  only  for  a  time,  and  he  was 
with  her  at  her  death,  in  1849.  She  lived  long  enough 
to  see  him  famous  as  the  author  of  "Twice -Told 
Tales  "  ;  but  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  "  had  not  been  writ 
ten  when  she  died. 

She,  as  well  as  her  husband,  was  one  of  a  family  of 
nine  brothers  and  sisters  ;  these  were  the  children  of 
Kichard  Manning.  Two  of  the  brothers,  Kichard  and 
Kobert,  were  living  in  Salem  when  she  was  left  a 
widow ;  Robert  being  eminent  in  New  England  at  that 
time  as  a  horticulturist.  She  was  without  resources, 
other  than  her  husband's  earnings,  and  Robert  under 
took  to  provide  for  her.  Accordingly,  she  removed 
with  her  young  family  to  the  Manning  homestead  on 
Herbert  Street,  the  next  street  east  of  Union  Street, 
where  Nathaniel  was  born.  This  homestead  stood 
upon  a  piece  of  land  running  through  to  Union 
Street,  and  adjoining  the  garden  attached  to  Haw 
thorne's  birthplace.  At  that  time  Dr.  Nathaniel  Pea- 


452  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

body,  a  physician,  occupied  a  house  in  a  brick  block 
on  the  opposite  side  of  Union  Street;  and  there  in 
1809,  September  21st,  was  born  his  daughter,  Sophia 
A.  Peabody,  who  afterwards  became  Hawthorne's  wife. 
Her  birthplace,  therefore,  was  but  a  few  rods  distant 
from  that  of  her  future  husband.  Sophia  Peabody's 
eldest  sister,  Mary,  who  married  Horace  Mann,  noted 
as  an  educator  and  an  abolitionist,  remembers  the 
child  Nathaniel,  who  was  then  about  five  years  old. 
He  used  to  make  his  appearance  in  the  garden  of  the 
Herbert  Street  mansion,  running  and  dancing  about 
there  at  play,  a  vivacious,  golden-haired  boy.  The 
next  oldest  sister,  who  was  the  first  of  this  family  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  the  young  author  some  thirty 
years  later  on,  was  Miss  Elizabeth  P.  Peabody,  who 
has  taken  an  important  part  in  developing  the  Kin 
dergarten  in  America.  There  were  plenty  of  books  in 
the  Manning  house,  and  Nathaniel  very  soon  got  at 
them.  Among  the  authors  whom  he  earliest  came  to 
know  were  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Pope,  Thomson,  and 
Rousseau.  The  "  Castle  of  Indolence  "  was  one  of 
his  favorite  volumes.  Subsequently,  he  read  the  whole 
of  the  "  Newgate  Calendar,"  and  became  intensely  ab 
sorbed  in  Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  which  un 
doubtedly  left  very  deep  impressions  upon  him,  trace 
able  in  the  various  allusions  to  it  scattered  through  his 
works.  He  also  made  himself  familiar  with  Spenser's 
"  Faerie  Queen,"  Froissart's  "  Chronicles,"  and  Claren 
don's  "  History  of  the  Rebellion." 

"  Being  a  healthy  boy,  with  strong  out-of-door  in 
stincts  planted  in  him  by  inheritance  from  his  sea 
faring  sire,  it  might  have  been  that  he  would  not  have 
been  brought  so  early  to  an  intimacy  with  books,  but 
for  an  accident  similar  to  that  which  played  a  part  in 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  453 

the  boyhoods  of  Scott  and  Dickens.  When  he  was 
nine  years  old,  he  was  struck  on  the  foot  by  a  ball, 
and  made  seriously  lame.  The  earliest  fragment  of 
his  writing  now  extant  is  a  letter  to  his  uncle  Robert 
Manning,  at  that  time  in  Raymond,  Maine,  written 
from  Salem,  December  9,  1813.  It  announces  that 
the  foot  is  no  better,  and  that  a  new  doctor  is  to  be 
sent  for.  4  Maybe,'  the  boy  writes,  4  he  will  do  me 

some  good,  for  Dr.  B has  not,  and  I  don't  know 

as  Dr.  K will.'     He  adds  that  it  is  now  four 

weeks  since  he  has  been  to  school,  '  and  I  don't  know 
but  it  will  be  four  weeks  longer.'  .  .  .  But  the  trouble 
was  destined  to  last  much  longer  than  even  the  young 
seer  had  projected  his  gaze.  There  was  some  threat  of 
deformity,  and  it  was  not  until  he  was  nearly  twelve 
that  he  became  quite  well.  Meantime,  his  kind  school 
master,  Dr.  Worcester,  .  .  .  came  to  hear  him  his 
lessons  at  home.  The  good  pedagogue  does  not  fig 
ure  after  this  in  Hawthorne's  history  ;  but  a  copy  of 
Worcester's  Dictionary  still  exists  and  is  in  present 
use,  which  bears  in  a  tremulous  writing  on  the  fly-leaf 
the  legend  :  4  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  Esq.,  with  the  re 
spects  of  J.  E.  Worcester.'  For  a  long  time,  in  the 
worst  of  his  lameness,  the  gentle  boy  was  forced  to 
lie  prostrate,  and  choosing  the  floor  for  his  couch,  he 
would  read  there  all  day  long.  He  was  extremely 
fond  of  cats  —  a  taste  which  he  kept  through  life ; 
and  during  this  illness,  forced  to  odd  resorts  for 
amusement,  he  knitted  a  pair  of  socks  for  the  cat  who 
reigned  in  the  household  at  the  time.  When  tired  of 
reading,  he  constructed  houses  of  books  for  the  sarm 
feline  pet,  building  walls  for  her  to  leap,  and  perhapf 
erecting  triumphal  arches  for  her  to  pass  under." l 
1  A  Study  of  Hawthorne,  III.,  67-69 


454  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

The  lexicographer,  Dr.  Worcester,  was  then  living 
at  Salem  in  charge  of  a  school,  which  he  kept  for  a 
few  years ;  and  it  was  with  him  that  Hawthorne  was 
carrying  on  his  primary  studies.  He  also  went  to 
dancing-school,  was  fond  of  fishing  as  well  as  of  taking 
long  walks,  and  doubtless  engaged  in  the  sundry  occu 
pations  and  sports,  neither  more  nor  less  extraordinary 
than  these,  common  to  lads  of  his  age.  He  already 
displayed  a  tendency  towards  dry  humor.  As  he 
brought  home  from  school  frequent  reports  of  having 
had  a  bout  at  fisticuffs  with  another  pupil  named  John 
Knights,  his  sister  Elizabeth  asked  him :  "  Why  do 
you  fight  with  John  Knights  so  often  ?  "  "I  can't 
help  it,"  he  answered:  "John  Knights  is  a  boy  of 
very  quarrelsome  disposition." 

But  all  this  time  an  interior  growth,  of  which  we 
can  have  no  direct  account,  was  proceeding  in  his 
mind.  The  loss  of  the  father  whom  he  had  had  so 
little  chance  to  see  and  know  and  be  fondled  by,  no 
doubt  produced  a  profound  effect  upon  him.  While 
still  a  very  young  child  he  would  rouse  himself  from 
long  broodings,  to  exclaim  with  an  impressive  shaking 
of  the  head :  "  There,  mother !  I  is  going  away  to  sea 
some  time ;  and  I  '11  never  come  back  again !  "  The 
thought  of  that  absent  one,  whose  barque  had  glided 
out  of  Salem  harbor  bound  upon  a  terrestrial  voyage, 
but  had  carried  him  softly  away  to  the  unseen  world, 
must  have  been  incessantly  with  the  boy  ;  and  it  would 
naturally  melt  into  what  he  heard  of  the  strange, 
shadowy  history  of  his  ancestors,  and  mix  itself  with 
the  ever-present  hush  of  settled  grief  in  his  mother's 
dwelling,  and  blend  with  his  unconscious  observations 
of  the  old  town  in  which  he  lived.  Salem  then  was 
much  younger  in  time,  but  much  older  to  the  eye,  than 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  455 

it  is  now.  In  "  Alice  Doane's  Appeal "  he  has  sketched 
a  rapid  bird's-eye  view  of  it  as  it  appeared  to  him  when 
he  was  a  young  man.  Describing  his  approach  with 
his  sisters  to  Witch  Hill,  he  says  :  "  We  .  .  .  began 
to  ascend  a  hill  which  at  a  distance,  by  its  dark  slope 
and  the  even  line  of  its  summit,  resembled  a  green  ram 
part  along  the  road ;  .  .  .  but,  strange  to  tell,  though 
the  whole  slope  and  summit  were  of  a  peculiarly  deep 
green,  scarce  a  blade  of  grass  was  visible  from  the 
base  upward.  This  deceitful  verdure  was  occasioned 
by  a  plentiful  crop  of  'wood-wax,'  which  wears  the 
same  dark  and  gloomy  green  throughout  the  summer, 
except  at  one  short  period,  when  it  puts  forth  a  pro 
fusion  of  yellow  blossoms.  At  that  season,  to  a  dis 
tant  spectator  the  hill  appears  absolutely  overlaid  with 
gold,  or  covered  with  a  glory  of  sunshine  even  under 
a  clouded  sky."  This  wood-wax,  it  may  be  said,  is 
a  weed  which  grows  nowhere  but  in  Essex  County, 
and,  having  been  native  in  England,  was  undoubtedly 
brought  over  by  the  Pilgrims.  He  goes  on  :  "  There 
are  few  such  prospects  of  town  and  village,  woodland 
and  cultivated  field,  steeples  and  country-seats,  as  we 
beheld  from  this  unhappy  spot.  .  .  .  Before  us  lay  our 
native  town,  extending  from  the  foot  of  the  hill  to  the 
harbor,  level  as  a  chess-board,  embraced  by  two  arms 
of  the  sea,  and  filling  the  whole  peninsula  with  a  clos? 
assemblage  of  wooden  roofs,  overtopped  by  many  a 
spire  and  intermixed  with  frequent  heaps  of  verdure. 
.  .  .  Retaining  these  portions  of  the  scene,  and  also 
the  peaceful  glory  and  tender  gloom  of  the  declining 
sun,  we  threw  in  imagination  a  deep  veil  of  forest  over 
the  land,  and  pictured  a  few  scattered  villages  here 
and  there  and  this  old  town  itself  a  village,  as  when 
the  prince  of  Hell  bore  sway  there.  The  idea  thug 


456  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

gained  of  its  former  aspect,  its  quaint  edifices  stand, 
ing  far  apart  with  peaked  roofs  and  projecting  stories, 
and  its  single  meeting-house  pointing  up  a  tall  spire 
in  the  midst ;  the  vision,  in  short,  of  the  town  in  1692, 
served  to  introduce  a  wondrous  tale."  There  were 
in  fact  several  old  houses  of  the  kind  here  described 
still  extant  during  Hawthorne's  boyhood,  and  he  went 
every  Sunday  to  service  in  the  First  Church,  in  whose 
congregation  his  forefathers  had  held  a  pew  for  a  hun 
dred  and  seventy  years.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  some  of 
the  materials  for  "  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  " 
and  "  The  Scarlet  Letter "  were  already  depositing 
themselves  in  the  form  of  indelible  recollections  and 
suggestions  taken  from  his  surroundings. 

Oppressed  by  her  great  sorrow,  his  mother  had  shut 
herself  away,  after  her  husband's  death,  from  all  so 
ciety  except  that  of  her  immediate  relatives.  This  was 
perhaps  not  a  very  extraordinary  circumstance,  nor 
one  that  need  be  construed  as  denoting  a  morbid  dis 
position  ;  but  it  was  one  which  must  have  distinctly 
affected  the  tone  of  her  son's  meditations.  In  1818, 
when  he  was  fourteen  years  old,  she  retired  to  a  still 
deeper  seclusion,  in  Maine ;  but  the  occasion  of  this 
was  simply  that  her  brother  Robert,  having  purchased 
the  seven-mile-square  township  of  Raymond,  in  that 
State,  had  built  a  house  there,  intending  to  found  a 
new  home.  The  year  that  Hawthorne  passed  in  that 
spot,  amid  the  breezy  life  of  the  forest,  fishing  and 
shooting,  watching  the  traits  and  customs  of  lumber 
men  and  country-folk,  and  drinking  in  the  tonic  of  a 
companionship  with  untamed  nature,  was  to  him  a 
happy  and  profitable  one.  "  We  are  all  very  well," 
he  wrote  thence  to  his  Uncle  Robert,  in  May,  1819 : 
*  The  fences  are  all  finished,  and  the  garden  is  laid 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  457 

out  and  planted.  ...  I  have  shot  a  partridge  and  a 
henhawk,  and  caught  eighteen  large  trout  out  of  our 
brook.  I  am  sorry  you  intend  to  send  me  to  school 
again."  He  had  been  to  the  place  before,  probably 
for  short  visits,  when  his  Uncle  Richard  was  staying 
there,  and  his  memories  of  it  were  always  agreeable 
ones.  To  Mr.  James  T.  Fields,  he  said  in  1863  :  "  I 
lived  in  Maine  like  a  bird  of  the  air,  so  perfect  was 
the  freedom  I  enjoyed.  But  it  was  there  I  first  got 
my  cursed  habits  of  solitude."  "  During  the  moon 
light  nights  of  winter  he  would  skate  until  midnight 
all  alone  upon  Sebago  Lake,  with  the  deep  shadows  of 
the  icy  hills  on  either  hand.  When  he  found  himself 
far  away  from  his  home  and  weary  with  the  exercise  of 
skating,  he  would  sometimes  take  refuge  in  a  log-cabin, 
where  half  a  tree  would  be  burning  on  the  broad 
hearth.  He  would  sit  in  the  ample  chimney,  and  look 
at  the  stars  through  the  great  aperture  through  which 
the  flames  went  roaring  up.  '  Ah,'  he  said,  '  how  well 
I  recall  the  summer  days,  also,  when  with  my  gun  I 
roamed  through  the  woods  of  Maine  ! '  "  1 

Hawthorne  at  this  time  had  an  intention  of  following 
the  example  of  his  father  and  grandfather,  and  going 
to  sea ;  but  this  was  frustrated  by  the  course  of  events. 
His  mother,  it  is  probable,  would  strongly  have  ob 
jected  to  it.  In  a  boyish  journal  kept  while  he  was  at 
Raymond  he  mentions  a  gentleman  having  come  with 
a  boat  to  take  one  or  two  persons  out  on  "  the  Great 
Pond,"  and  adds :  "  He  was  kind  enough  to  say  that 
I  might  go  (with  my  mother's  consent),  which  she 
gave  after  much  coaxing.  Since  the  loss  of  my  father 
she  dreads  to  have  any  one  belonging  to  her  go  upon 
the  water."  And  again :  "  A  young  man  named 

i  Yesterdays  With  Authors,  p.  113. 


458  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

Henry  Jackson,  Jr.,  was  drowned  two  days  ago,  up  in 
Crooked  River.  ...  I  read  one  of  the  Psalms  to  my 
mother .  this  morning,  and  it  plainly  declares  twenty- 
six  times  that  4  God's  mercy  endureth  forever.'  .  .  . 
Mother  is  sad ;  says  she  shall  not  consent  any  more  to 
my  swimming  in  the  mill-pond  with  the  boys,  fearing 
that  in  sport  my  mouth  might  get  kicked  open,  and 
then  sorrow  for  a  dead  son  be  added  to  that  for  a 
dead  father,  which  she  says  would  break  her  heart.  I 
love  to  swim,  but  I  shall  not  disobey  my  mother." 
This  same  journal,  which  seems  to  have  laid  the  basis 
of  his  life-long  habit  of  keeping  note-books,  was  begun 
at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Richard  Manning,  who  gave 
him  a  blank-book,  with  advice  that  he  should  use  it 
for  recording  his  thoughts,  "  as  the  best  means  of  his 
securing  for  mature  years  command  of  thought  and 
language."  In  it  were  made  a  number  of  entries  which 
testify  plainly  to  his  keenness  of  observation  both  of 
people  and  scenery,  to  his  sense  of  humor  and  his 
shrewdness.  Here  are  a  few :  — 

"  Swapped  pocket-knives  with  Robinson  Cook  yes 
terday.  Jacob  Dingley  says  that  he  cheated  me,  but 
I  think  not,  for  I  cut  a  fishing-pole  this  morning  and 
did  it  well ;  besides,  he  is  a  Quaker,  and  they  never 
cheat." 

"This  morning  the  bucket  got  off  the  chain,  and 
dropped  back  into  the  well.  I  wanted  to  go  down  on 
the  stones  and  get  it.  Mother  would  not  consent,  for 
fear  the  well  might  cave  in,  but  hired  Samuel  Shaw 
to  go  down.  In  the  goodness  of  her  heart,  she  thought 
the  son  of  old  Mrs.  Shaw  not  quite  so  good  as  the  son 
of  the  Widow  Hathorne." 

Of  a  trout  that  he  saw  caught  by  some  men :  — 
"  This  trout  had  a  droll-looking  hooked  nose,  and 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  459 

tried  to  make  me  believe  that,  if  the  line  had  been  in 
my  hands,  I  should  have  been  obliged  to  let  go,  or 
have  been  pulled  out  of  the  boat.  They  are  men,  and 
have  a  right  to  say  so.  I  am  a  boy,  and  have  a  right 
to  think  differently." 

"  We  could  see  the  White  Hills  to  the  northwest, 
though  Mr.  Little  said  they  were  eighty  miles  away  ; 
and  grand  old  Rattlesnake  to  the  northeast,  in  its  im 
mense  jacket  of  green  oak,  looked  more  inviting  than 
I  had  ever  seen  it ;  while  Frye's  Island,  with  its  close 
growth  of  great  trees  growing  to  the  very  edge  of  the 
water,  looked  like  a  monstrous  green  raft,  floating  to 
the  southeastward.  Whichever  way  the  eye  turned, 
something  charming  appeared." 

The  mental  clearness,  the  sharpness  of  vision,  and 
the  competence  of  the  language  in  this  early  note-book 
are  remarkable,  considering  the  youth  and  inexperi 
ence  of  the  writer  ;  and  there  is  one  sketch  of  "  a  sol 
emn-faced  old  horse  "  at  the  grist-mill,  which  exhibits 
a  delightful  boyish  humor  with  a  dash  of  pathos  in  it, 
and  at  the  same  time  is  the  first  instance  on  record  of 
a  mild  approach  by  Hawthorne  to  the  writing  of  fic 
tion  :  — 

"  He  had  brought  for  his  owner  some  bags  of  corn 
to  be  ground,  who,  after  carrying  them  into  the  mill, 
walked  up  to  Uncle  Richard's  store,  leaving  his  half- 
starved  animal  in  the  cold  wind  with  nothing  to  eat, 
while  the  corn  was  being  turned  into  meal.  I  felt 
sorry,  and,  nobody  being  near,  thought  it  best  to  have 
a  talk  with  the  old  nag,  and  said,  '  Good  morning, 
Mr.  Horse,  how  are  you  to-day  ?  '  '  Good  morning, 
youngster,'  said  he,  just  as  plain  as  a  horse  can  speak ; 
and  then  said,  '  I  am  almost  dead,  and  I  wish  I  was 
quite.  I  am  hungry,  have  had  no  breakfast,  and  must 


460  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

stand  here  tied  by  the  head  while  they  are  grinding 
the  corn,  and  until  master  drinks  two  or  three  glasses 
of  rum  at  the  store,  then  drag  the  meal  and  him  up 
the  Ben  Ham  Hill  home,  and  am  now  so  weak  that  I 
can  hardly  stand.  Oh  dear,  I  am  in  a  bad  way ; '  and 
the  old  creature  cried.  I  almost  cried  myself.  Just 
then  the  miller  went  down-stairs  to  the  meal-trough ; 
I  heard  his  feet  on  the  steps,  and  not  thinking  much 
what  I  was  doing,  ran  into  the  mill,  and,  taking  the 
four-quart  toll-dish  nearly  full  of  corn  out  of  the  hop 
per,  carried  it  out,  and  poured  it  into  the  trough  be 
fore  the  horse,  and  placed  the  dish  back  before  the 
miller  came  up  from  below.  When  I  got  out,  the 
horse  was  laughing,  but  he  had  to  eat  slowly,  because 
the  bits  were  in  his  mouth.  I  told  him  that  I  was 
sorry,  but  did  not  know  how  to  take  them  out,  and 
should  not  dare  to  if  I  did.  ...  At  last  the  horse 
winked  and  stuck  out  his  lip  ever  so  far,  and  then 
said,  4  The  last  kernel  is  gone  ; '  then  he  laughed  a  lit 
tle,  then  shook  one  ear,  then  the  other ;  then  he  shut 
his  eyes.  I  jumped  up  and  said  :  '  How  do  you  feel, 
old  fellow  ;  any  better  ? '  He  opened  his  eyes,  and 
looking  at  me  kindly  answered,  '  Very  much,'  and  then 
blew  his  nose  exceedingly  loud,  but  he  did  not  wipe  it. 
Perhaps  he  had  no  wiper.  I  then  asked  him  if  his 
master  whipped  him  much.  He  answered, '  Not  much 
lately.  He  used  to  till  my  hide  got  hardened,  but 
now  he  has  a  white-oak  goad-stick  with  an  iron  brad 
in  its  end,  with  which  he  jabs  my  hind-quarters  and 
hurts  me  awfully.'  .  .  .  The  goad  with  the  iron  brad 
was  in  the  wagon,  and  snatching  it  out  I  struck  the 
end  against  a  stone,  and  the  stabber  flew  into  the  mill- 
pond.  '  There,'  says  I,  '  old  colt,'  as  I  threw  the  goad 
back  into  the  wagon,  'he  won't  harpoon  you  again  witlj 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  461 

that  iron.'  The  poor  old  brute  understood  well  enough 
what  I  said,  for  I  looked  him  in  the  eye  and  spoke 
horse  language." 

Mother  and  uncles  could  hardly  have  missed  observ 
ing  in  him  many  tokens  of  a  gifted  intelligence  and 
an  uncommon  individuality.  The  perception  of  these, 
added  to  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  dread  of  the  sea,  may  have 
led  to  the  decision  which  was  taken  to  send  him  to  col 
lege.  In  1819  he  went  back  to  Salem,  to  continue  his 
schooling ;  and  one  year  later,  March  7,  1820,  wrote 
to  his  mother,  who  was  still  at  Raymond :  "  I  have 
left  school,  and  have  begun  to  fit  for  College,  under 
Benjamin  L.  Oliver,  Lawyer.  So  you  are  in  great 
danger  of  having  one  learned  man  in  your  family.  .  .  . 
Shall  you  want  me  to  be  a  Minister,  Doctor,  or  Law 
yer  ?  A  minister  I  will  not  be."  Miss  E.  P.  Peabody 
remembers  another  letter  of  his,  in  which  he  touched 
the  same  problem,  thus  :  "  I  do  not  want  to  be  a  doc 
tor  and  live  by  men's  diseases,  nor  a  minister  to  live 
by  their  sins,  nor  a  lawyer  and  live  by  their  quarrels. 
So  I  don't  see  that  there  is  anything  left  but  for  me 
to  be  an  author.  How  would  you  like  some  day  to 
see  a  whole  shelf  full  of  books  written  by  your  son, 
with  '  Hathorne's  Works  '  printed  on  the  backs  ?  " 
There  appears  to  have  been  but  little  difficulty  for 
him  in  settling  the  problem  of  his  future  occupation. 
During  part  of  August  and  September  he  amused 
himself  by  writing  three  numbers  of  a  miniature 
weekly  paper  called  "  The  Spectator ;  "  and  in  Octo 
ber  we  find  that  he  had  been  composing  poetry  and 
sending  it  to  his  sister  Elizabeth,  who  was  also  exer 
cising  herself  in  verse.  At  this  time  he  was  employed 
as  a  clerk,  for  a  part  of  each  day,  in  the  office  of  an 
other  uncle,  William  Manning,  proprietor  of  a  great 


462  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

line  of  stages  which  then  had  extensive  connections 
throughout  New  England;  but  he  did  not  find  the 
task  congenial.  "  No  man,"  he  informed  his  sister, 
"  can  be  a  poet  and  a  book-keeper  at  the  same  time ; " 
from  which  one  infers  his  distinct  belief  that  literature 
was  his  natural  vocation.  The  idea  of  remaining  de 
pendent  for  four  years  more  on  the  bounty  of  his  Un 
cle  Robert,  who  had  so  generously  taken  the  place  of 
a  father  in  giving  him  a  support  and  education,  op 
pressed  him,  and  he  even  contemplated  not  going  to 
college ;  but  go  he  finally  did,  taking  up  his  residence 
at  Bowdoin  with  the  class  entering  in  1821. 

The  village  of  Brunswick,  where  Bowdoin  College  is 
situated,  some  thirty  miles  from  Raymond,  stands  on 
high  ground  beside  the  Androscoggin  River,  which  is 
there  crossed  by  a  bridge  running  zig-zag  from  bank 
to  bank,  resting  on  various  rocky  ledges  and  producing 
a  picturesque  effect.  The  village  itself  is  ranged  on 
two  sides  of  a  broad  street,  which  meets  the  river  at 
right  angles,  and  has  a  mall  in  the  centre  that,  in  Haw 
thorne's  time,  was  little  more  than  a  swamp.  This 
street,  then  known  as  "sixteen -rod  road,"  from  its 
width,  continues  in  a  straight  line  to  Casco  Bay,  only 
a  few  miles  off ;  so  that  the  new  student  was  still  near 
the  sea  and  had  a  good  course  for  his  walks.  If  Har* 
vard  fifty  and  even  twenty-five  years  ago  had  the  look 
of  a  rural  college,  Bowdoin  was  by  comparison  an 
academy  in  a  wilderness.  "  If  this  institution,"  says 
Hawthorne  in  "  Fanshawe,"  where  he  describes  it  un 
der  the  name  of  Harley  College,  "  did  not  offer  all  the 
advantages  of  elder  and  prouder  seminaries,  its  defi 
ciencies  were  compensated  to  its  students  by  the  in 
culcation  of  regular  habits,  and  of  a  deep  and  awful 
sense  of  religion,  which  seldom  deserted  them  in  their 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  463 

course  through  life.  The  mild  and  gentle  rule  .  .  . 
was  more  destructive  to  vice  than  a  sterner  sway  ;  and 
though  youth  is  never  without  its  follies,  they  have  sel 
dom  been  more  harmless  than  they  were  here."  The 
local  resources  for  amusement  or  dissipation  must  have 
been  very  limited,  and  the  demands  of  the  curriculum 
not  very  severe.  Details  of  Hawthorne's  four  years' 
stay  at  college  are  not  forthcoming,  otherwise  than  in 
small  quantity.  His  comrades  who  survived  him  never 
have  been  able  to  give  any  very  vivid  picture  of  the 
life  there,  or  to  recall  any  anecdotes  of  Hawthorne : 
the  whole  episode  has  slipped  away,  like  a  dream  from 
which  fragmentary  glimpses  alone  remain.  By  one  of 
those  unaccountable  associations  with  trifles,  which  out 
last  more  important  memories,  Professor  Calvin  Stowe 
(to  whom  the  authoress  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  was 
afterwards  married)  remembers  seeing  Hawthorne, 
then  a  member  of  the  class  below  him,  crossing  the 
college-yard  one  stormy  day,  attired  in  a  brass-but 
toned  blue  coat,  with  an  umbrella  over  his  head.  The 
wind  caught  the  umbrella  and  turned  it  inside  out ; 
and  what  stamped  the  incident  on  Professor  Stowe's 
mind  was  the  silent  but  terrible  and  consuming  wrath 
with  which  Hawthorne  regarded  the  implement  in  its 
utterly  subverted  and  useless  state,  as  he  tried  to  rear 
range  it.  Incidents  of  no  greater  moment  and  the 
general  effect  of  his  presence  seem  to  have  created 
the  belief  among  his  fellows  that,  beneath  the  bashful 
quietude  of  his  exterior,  was  stored  a  capability  of  ex 
erting  tremendous  force  in  some  form  or  other.  He 
was  seventeen  when  he  entered  college,  —  tall,  broad- 
chested,  with  clear,  lustrous  gray  eyes,1  a  fresh  com- 

1  Both  his  friends,  George  William  Curtis  and  George  S.  Hillard, 
In  writing  about  him,  have  made  the  mistake  of  assigning  to  him 


464  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

plexion,  and  long  hair:  his  classmates  were  so  im 
pressed  with  his  masculine  beauty,  and  perhaps  with 
a  sense  of  occult  power  in  him,  that  they  nicknamed 
him  Oberon.  Although  unusually  calm-tempered,  how 
ever,  he  was  quick  to  resent  disrespectful  treatment 
(as  he  had  been  with  John  Knights),  and  his  vigor 
ous,  athletic  frame  made  him  a  formidable  adversary. 
In  the  same  class  with  him  were  Henry  W.  Longfel 
low  ;  George  Barrell  Cheever,  since  famous  as  a  divine, 
and  destined  to  make  a  great  stir  in  Salem  by  a  satire 
in  verse  called  "  Deacon  Giles's  Distillery,"  which  cost 
him  a  thirty  days'  imprisonment,  together  with  the  loss 
of  his  pastorate  ;  also  John  S.  C.  Abbott,  the  writer 
of  popular  histories ;  and  Horatio  Bridge,  afterwards 
Lieutenant  in  the  United  States  Navy,  and  now  Com 
mander.  Bridge  and  Franklin  Pierce,  who  studied  in 
the  class  above  him,  were  his  most  intimate  friends. 
He  boarded  in  a  house  which  had  a  stairway  on  the 
outside,  ascending  to  the  second  story ;  he  took  part,  I 
suppose,  in  the  "  rope-pulls  "  and  "  hold-ins  "  between 
Freshmen  and  Sophomores,  if  those  customs  were 
practised  then ;  he  was  fined  for  card-playing  and  for 
neglect  of  theme ;  entered  the  Athenian  Society, 
which  had  a  library  of  eight  hundred  volumes ;  tried 
to  read  Hume's  "  History  of  England,"  but  found  it 
"abominably  dull,"  and  postponed  the  attempt;  was 
fond  of  whittling,  and  destroyed  some  of  his  furniture 
in  gratifying  that  taste.  Such  are  the  insignificant 
particulars  to  which  we  are  confined  in  attempting  to 
form  an  idea  of  the  externals  of  his  college-life.  Pierce 
was  chairman  of  the  Athenian  Society,  and  also  or 
ganized  a  military  company,  which  Hawthorne  joined. 

black  or  dark  eyes ;  an  error  perhaps  due  to  the  depth  of  shadowed 
cavity  in  which  they  were  seen  under  the  high  and  massive  forehead. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  465 

In  the  Preface  to  "  The  Snow-Image  "  we  are  given  a 
glimpse  of  the  simple  amusements  which  occupied  his 
leisure :  "  While  we  were  lads  together  at  a  country 
college,  gathering  blueberries  in  study  hours  under 
those  tall  academic  pines ;  or  watching  the  great  logs 
as  they  tumbled  along  the  current  of  the  Androscog- 
gin  ;  or  shooting  pigeons  and  gray  squirrels  in  the 
woods;  or  bat -fowling  in  the  summer-twilight;  or 
catching  trouts  in  that  shadowy  little  stream  which, 
I  suppose,  is  still  wandering  riverward  through  the 
forest."  He  became  proficient  in  Latin.  Longfellow 
was  wont  to  recall  how  he  would  rise  at  recitation, 
standing  slightly  sidewise  —  attitude  indicative  of  his 
ingrained  shyness  —  and  read  from  the  Roman  clas 
sics  translations  which  had  a  peculiar  elegance  and 
charm.  In  writing  English,  too,  he  won  a  reputation, 
and  Professor  Newman  was  often  so  struck  with  the 
beauty  of  his  work  in  this  kind  that  he  would  read 
them  in  the  evening  to  his  own  family.  Professor 
Packard  says  :  "  His  themes  were  written  in  the  sus 
tained,  finished  style  that  gives  to  his  mature  produc 
tions  an  inimitable  charm.  The  recollection  is  very 
distinct  of  Hawthorne's  reluctant  step  and  averted 
look,  when  he  presented  himself  at  the  professor's 
study  and  submitted  a  composition  which  no  man  in 
his  class  could  equal." 

Hawthorne  always  looked  back  with  satisfaction  to 
those  simple  and  placid  days.  In  1852  he  revisited 
the  scene  where  they  were  passed,  in  order  to  be  pres 
ent  at  the  semi-centennial  anniversary  of  the  founding 
of  the  college.  A  letter,  from  Concord  (October  13, 
1852),  to  Lieutenant  Bridge,  now  for  the  first  time 
published,  contains  the  following  reference  to  that 
event : — 

VOL.  xw.  30 


466  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

"  I  meant  to  have  told  you  about  my  visit  to  Bruns 
wick.  .  .  .  Only  eight  of  our  classmates  were  present, 
and  they  were  a  set  of  dismal  old  fellows,  whose  heads 
looked  as  if  they  had  been  out  in  a  pretty  copious 
shower  of  snow.  The  whole  intermediate  quarter  of  a 
century  vanished,  and  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  they  had 
undergone  the  miserable  transformation  in  the  course 
of  a  single  night  —  especially  as  I  myself  felt  just 
about  as  young  as  when  I  graduated.  They  flattered 
me  with  the  assurance  that  time  had  touched  me  ten 
derly  ;  but  alas  !  they  were  each  a  mirror  in  which  I 
beheld  the  reflection  of  my  own  age.  I  did  not  arrive 
till  after  the  public  exercises  were  nearly  over  —  and 
very  luckily,  too,  for  my  praises  had  been  sounded  by 
orator  and  poet,  and  of  course  my  blushes  would  have 
been  quite  oppressive." 

Hawthorne's  rank  in  his  class  entitled  him  to  a 
"  part "  at  Commencement,  but  the  fact  that  he  had 
not  cultivated  declamation  debarred  him  from  that 
honor ;  and  so  he  passed  quietly  away  from  the  life  of 
Bowdoin  and  settled  down  to  his  career.  "I  have 
thought  much  upon  the  subject,"  he  wrote  to  his  sister, 
just  before  graduation,  "  and  have  come  to  the  con 
clusion  that  I  shall  never  make  a  distinguished  figure 
in  the  world,  and  all  I  hope  or  wish  is  to  plod  along 
with  the  multitude."  But  declamation  was  not  essen 
tial  to  his  success,  which  was  to  be  achieved  in  anything 
but  a  declamatory  fashion. 


II. 

In  one  sense  it  was  all  very  simple,  this  childhood 
and  youth  and  early  training  of  Hawthorne.  We  can 
Bee  that  the  conditions  were  not  complicated  and  were 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  467 

quite  homely.  But  the  influence  of  good  literature 
had  been  at  work  upon  the  excellent  mental  substance 
derived  from  a  father  who  was  fond  of  reading  and  a 
mother  who  had  the  plain  elementary  virtues  on  which 
so  much  depends,  and  great  purity  of  soul.  The  com 
posure  and  finish  of  style  which  he  already  had  at 
command  on  going  to  college  were  ripened  amid  the 
homely  conditions  aforesaid:  there  must  have  been 
an  atmosphere  of  culture  in  his  home,  unpretentious 
though  the  mode  of  life  there  was.  His  sister,  as  I 
have  mentioned,  showed  much  the  same  tone,  the  same 
commanding  ease,  in  her  writing.  There  existed  a 
dignity,  a  reserve,  an  instinctive  refinement  in  this 
old-fashioned  household,  which  moved  its  members  to 
appropriate  the  best  means  of  expression  as  by  nat 
ural  right.  They  appear  to  have  treated  the  most  or 
dinary  affairs  of  life  with  a  quiet  stateliness,  as  if 
human  existence  were  really  a  thing  to  be  considered 
with  respect,  and  with  a  frank  interest  that  might  oc 
casionally  even  admit  of  enthusiasm  or  strong  feel 
ing  with  regard  to  an  experience,  although  thousands 
of  beings  might  have  passed  through  it  before.  Our 
new  horizons,  physically  enlarged  by  rapid  travel,  our 
omnifarious  culture,  our  passion  for  obtaining  a  glaze 
of  cosmopolitanism  to  cover  the  common  clay  from 
which  we  are  all  moulded,  do  not  often  yield  us  any 
thing  essentially  better  than  the  narrow  limits  of  the 
little  world  in  which  Hawthorne  grew  up.  He  was 
now  to  go  back  to  Salem,  which  he  once  spoke  of  as 
being  apparently  for  him  "  the  inevitable  centre  of  the 
universe  ;  "  and  the  conditions  there  were  not  radically 
altered  from  what  they  had  been  before.  We  can 
form  an  outline  of  him  as  he  was  then,  or  at  most  a 
Water-color  sketch  presenting  the  fresh  hues  of  youth. 


468  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

the  strong  manly  frame  of  the  young  graduate,  his  fine 
deep-lighted  eyes,  and  sensitively  retiring  ways.  But 
we  have  now  to  imagine  the  change  that  took  place 
in  him  from  the  recent  college  Senior  to  the  maturing 
man ;  change  that  gradually  transforms  him  from  the 
visionary  outline  of  that  earlier  period  to  a  solid  re 
ality  of  flesh  and  blood,  a  virile  and  efficient  person 
who  still,  while  developing,  did  not  lose  the  delicate 
sensibility  of  his  young  prime. 

His  family  having  reestablished  themselves  in  Salem, 
at  the  old  Herbert  Street  house,  he  settled  himself  with 
them,  and  stayed  there  until  December,  1828,  mean 
while  publishing  "  Fanshawe  "  anonymously.  They 
then  moved  to  a  smaller  house  on  Dearborn  Street, 
North  Salem ;  but  after  four  years  they  again  took  up 
their  abode  in  the  Herbert  Street  homestead.  Haw 
thorne  wrote  industriously ;  first  the  "  Seven  Tales  of 
my  Native  Land,"  which  he  burned,  and  subsequently 
the  sketches  and  stories  which,  after  appearing  in  cur 
rent  periodicals,  were  collected  as  "  Twice-Told  Tales." 
In  1830  he  took  a  carriage  trip  through  parts  of  Con 
necticut.  "  I  meet  with  many  marvellous  adventures," 
was  a  part  of  his  news  on  this  occasion,  but  they  were 
in  reality  adventures  of  a  very  tame  description.  He 
visited  New  York  and  New  Hampshire  and  Nan- 
tucket,  thus  extending  slightly  his  knowledge  of  men 
and  places.  A  great  deal  of  discursive  reading  was 
also  accomplished.  In  1836  he  went  to  Boston  to  edit 
for  Mr.  S.  G.  Goodrich  "  The  American  Magazine  of 
Useful  and  Entertaining  Knowledge."  It  did  not 
turn  out  to  be  either  useful  or  entertaining  for  the 
editor,  who  was  to  be  paid  but  $ 500  a  year  for  his 
drudgery,  and  in  fact  received  only  a  small  part  of 
that  sum.  Through  Goodrich,  he  became  a  copious 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  469 

Contributor  to  "  The  Token,"  in  the  pages  of  which  his 
tales  first  came  to  be  generally  known ;  but  he  gave 
up  the  magazine  after  a  four  months'  misery  of  editor 
ship,  and  sought  refuge  once  more  in  his  native  town. 
Salem  was  an  isolated  place,  was  not  even  joined  to 
the  outer  world  by  its  present  link  of  railroad  with 
Boston,  and  afforded  no  very  generous  diet  for  a 
young,  vigorous,  hungry  intellect  like  that  of  Haw 
thorne.  Surroundings,  however,  cannot  make  a  mind, 
though  they  may  color  its  processes.  He  proceeded 
to  extract  what  he  could  from  the  material  at  hand. 
"His  mode  of  life  at  this  period  was  fitted  to  nur 
ture  his  imagination,  but  must  have  put  the  endur 
ance  of  his  nerves  to  the  severest  test.  The  state 
ment  that  for  several  years  '  he  never  saw  the  sun  '  is 
entirely  an  error.  In  summer  he  was  up  shortly  after 
sunrise,  and  would  go  down  to  bathe  in  the  sea ;  but 
it  is  true  that  he  seldom  chose  to  walk  in  the  town 
except  at  night,  and  it  is  said  that  he  was  extremely 
fond  of  going  to  fires  if  they  occurred  after  dark.  The 
morning  was  chiefly  given  to  study,  the  afternoon  to 
writing,  and  in  the  evening  he  would  take  long  walks, 
exploring  the  coast  from  Gloucester  to  Marblehead 
and  Lynn  —  a  range  of  many  miles.  .  .  .  Sometimes  he 
took  the  day  for  his  rambles,  wandering  perhaps  over 
Endicott's  ancient  Orchard  Farm  and  among  the  an 
tique  houses  and  grassy  cellars  of  old  Salem  Village, 
the  witchcraft  ground ;  or  losing  himself  among  the 
pines  of  Moiitserrat  and  in  the  silence  of  the  Great 
Pastures,  or  strolling  along  the  beaches  to  talk  with 
old  sailors  and  fishermen.''  "  He  had  little  commu 
nication  with  even  the  members  of  his  family.  Fre 
quently  his  meals  were  brought  and  left  at  his  locked 
door,  and  it  was  not  often  that  the  four  inmates  of  the 


470  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

old  Herbert  Street  mansion  met  in  family  circle.  He 
never  read  his  stories  aloud  to  his  mother  and  sisters, 
as  might  be  imagined  from  the  picture  which  Mr. 
Fields  draws  of  the  young  author  reciting  his  new 
productions  to  his  listening  family ;  though,  when  they 
met,  he  sometimes  read  older  literature  to  them.  It 
was  the  custom  in  this  household  for  the  members  to 
remain  very  much  by  themselves :  the  three  ladies  were 
perhaps  nearly  as  rigorous  recluses  as  himself ;  and, 
speaking  of  the  isolation  which  reigned  among  them, 
Hawthorne  once  said,  '  We  do  not  even  live  at  our 
house ! '  But  still  the  presence  of  this  near  and  gen 
tle  element  is  not  to  be  underrated,  as  forming  a  very 
great  compensation  in  the  cold  and  difficult  morning 
of  his  life."  Of  self-reliant  mind,  accustomed  to  soli 
tude  and  fond  of  reading,  it  was  not  strange  that  they 
should  have  fallen  into  these  habits,  which,  however 
peculiarly  they  may  strike  others,  did  not  necessarily 
spring  from  a  morbid  disposition,  and  never  prevented 
the  Hawthornes  from  according  a  kindly  reception  to 
their  friends. 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  own  associates  were  not 
numerous.  There  was  a  good  society  in  the  town,  for 
Salem  was  not,  strictly  speaking,  provincial,  but  — 
aided  in  a  degree  by  the  separateness  of  its  situation  — 
retained  very  much  its  old  independence  as  a  commer 
cial  capital.  There  were  people  of  wealth  and  culti 
vation,  of  good  lineage  in  our  simple  domestic  kind, 
who  made  considerable  display  in  their  entertainments 
and  were  addicted  to  impressive  absences  in  Paris 
and  London.  Among  these  Hawthorne  did  not  show 
himself  at  all.  His  preference  was  for  individuals 
who  had  no  pretensions  whatever  in  the  social  way. 
Among  his  friends  was  one  William  B.  Pike,  a  car- 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  471 

penter's  son,  who,  after  acquiring  an  ordinary  public- 
school  education  without  passing  through  the  higher 
grades,  adopted  his  father's  trade,  became  a  Method 
ist  class-leader,   secondly  a  disciple  of   Swedenborg, 
and  at  length  a  successful  politician,  being  appointed 
Collector  of  the  port  of  Salem  by  President  Pierce. 
He  is  described  as  having  "  a  strongly  marked,  benig 
nant  face,  indicative  of  intelligence  and  individuality. 
He  was  gray  at  twenty,  and  always  looked  older  than 
his  years.  ...  He  had  a  keen  sense  of  the  ludicrous, 
a  vivid  recollection  of  localities  and  incidents,  a  quick 
apprehension  of  peculiarities  and  traits,  and  was  a 
most  graphic  and  entertaining  narrator."  l     As  Mr. 
James  has  said  :  "  Hawthorne  had  a  democratic  strain 
in  his  composition,  a  relish  for  the  common  stuff  of 
human  nature.     He  liked  to  fraternize  with  plain  peo 
ple,  to  take  them  on  their  own  terms."     It  was  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world  for  him  to  fancy  such 
a  man  as  Pike  is  represented  to  have  been.     His  So 
ciety  in  college  was  the  one  which  displayed  a  demo 
cratic  tendency;  and,  in  addition  to  making  friends 
with  persons  of  this   stamp,  men  of  some  education 
and  much  innate  "  go,"  he  had  a  taste  for  loitering  in 
taverns  where  he  could  observe  character  in  the  rough, 
without  being  called  upon  to  take  an  active  share  in 
talk.    "Men,"  we  are  told,  "who  did  not  meddle  with 
him  he  loved,  men  who  made  no  demands  on  him,  who 
offered  him  the  repose  of  genial  companionship.     His 
Afe-long  friends  were  of  this  description,  and  his  loy 
alty  to  them  was  chivalrous  and  fearless,  and  so  gen 
erous  that  when  they  differed  from  him  on  matters  of 
opinion  he  rose  at  once  above  the  difference  and  ad- 

1  Hawthorne  and  his  Friends  •    Harper's  Magazine,  vol.  63  (July 
1881). 


472  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

hered  to  them  for  what  they  really  were."  Inevitably, 
such  a  basis  for  the  selection  of  companions,  coupled 
with  his  extreme  reserve,  subjected  him  to  criticism ; 
but  when,  in  1835,  his  former  classmate,  the  Rev. 
George  B.  Cheever,  was  thrown  into  jail  on  account 
of  the  satirical  temperance  pamphlet  which  has  al 
ready  been  referred  to  in  this  sketch,  Hawthorne 
emerged  from  his  strict  privacy,  and  daily  visited  the 
imprisoned  clergyman.  He  showed  no  especial  love 
for  his  native  place,  and  in  return  it  never  made  of 
him  a  popular  idol.  At  this  initial  epoch  of  his  career 
as  an  author  there  probably  did  not  exist  that  active 
ill-will  which  his  chapter  on  the  Custom  House  after 
wards  engendered ;  he  was  in  fact  too  little  known  to 
be  an  object  of  malice  or  envy,  and  his  humble  friend 
ships  could  not  be  made  the  ground  of  unfavorable 
insinuations.  The  town,  however,  was  not  congenial  to 
him,  and  the  profound  retirement  in  which  he  dwelt, 
the  slow  toil  with  scanty  meed  of  praise  or  gold,  and 
the  long  waiting  for  recognition,  doubtless  weighed 
upon  and  preyed  upon  him. 

To  stop  at  that  would  be  to  make  a  superficial  sum 
mary.  His  seclusion  was  also  of  the  highest  utility  to 
him,  nay,  almost  indispensable  to  his  development; 
for  his  mind,  which  seemed  to  be  only  creeping,  was 
making  long  strides  of  growth  in  an  original  direction, 
unhindered  by  arbitrary  necessities  or  by  factitious  in 
fluences. 

Nevertheless,  the  process  had  gone  on  long  enough ; 
and  it  was  well  that  circumstances  now  occurred  to 
bring  it  to  a  close,  to  establish  new  relations,  and 
draw  him  somewhat  farther  into  the  general  circle  of 
human  movement.  Dr.  Peabody,  who  has  been  spoken 
af  on  a  preceding  page  as  living  on  the  opposite  side 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  473 

of  Union  Street  from  Hawthorne's  birthplace,  had, 
during  the  vicissitudes  of  the  young  author's  educa 
tion  and  journeys  to  and  fro,  changed  his  residence 
and  gone  to  Boston.  No  acquaintance  had  as  yet 
sprung  up  between  the  two  families  which  had  been 
domiciled  so  near  together,  but  in  1832  the  Peabodys 
returned  to  Salem ;  and  Miss  Elizabeth,  who  followed 
in  183G,  having  been  greatly  struck  by  the  story  of 
"  The  Gentle  Boy,"  and  excited  as  to  the  authorship, 
set  on  foot  an  investigation  which  resulted  in  her 
meeting  Hawthorne.  It  is  an  evidence  of  the  ap- 
proachableness,  after  all,  of  his  secluded  family,  that 
Miss  Louisa  Hawthorne  should  have  received  her 
readily  and  with  graciousness.  Miss  Peabody,  having 
formerly  seen  one  of  Miss  Hawthorne's  letters,  had 
supposed  that  she  must  be  the  writer  of  the  stories, 
under  shelter  of  a  masculine  name.  She  now  learned 
her  mistake.  Months  passed  without  any  response 
being  made  to  her  advance.  But  when  the  first  vol 
ume  of  "  Twice-Told  Tales  "  was  issued,  Hawthorne 
sent  it  to  her  with  his  compliments.  Up  to  this  time 
she  had  not  obtained  even  a  glimpse  of  him  anywhere  ; 
and,  in  acknowledging  his  gift,  she  proposed  that  he 
should  call  at  her  father's  house ;  but  although  matters 
had  proceeded  thus  far,  and  Dr.  Peabody  lived  within 
three  minutes'  walk  of  Herbert  Street,  Hawthorne  still 
did  not  come.  It  was  more  than  a  year  afterward  that 
she  addressed  an  inquiry  to  him  about  a  new  maga 
zine,  and  in  closing  asked  him  to  bring  his  sisters  to 
call  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day.  This  time  he 
made  his  appearance,  was  induced  to  accept  an  in 
vitation  to  another  house,  and  thus  was  led  into  be* 
ginning  a  social  intercourse  which,  though  not  exten< 
sive,  was  unequalled  in  his  previous  experience. 


474  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

About  a  week  after  the  first  call,  he  came  agaia 
Miss  Sophia  Peabody,  who  was  an  invalid,  had  been 
unable  to  appear  before,  but  this  time  she  entered  the 
room  ;  and  it  was  thus  that  Hawthorne  met  the  lady 
whom  he  was  to  make  his  wife  some  two  or  three 
years  later.  She  was  now  about  twenty-nine,  and 
younger  by  five  years  than  Hawthorne.  In  childhood 
her  health  had  received  a  serious  shock  from  the  he 
roic  treatment  then  upheld  by  physicians,  which  fa 
vored  a  free  use  of  mercury,  so  that  it  became  neces 
sary  from  that  time  on  to  nurse  her  with  the  utmost 
care.  Many  years  of  in  valid  ism  had  she  suffered,  be 
ing  compelled  to  stay  in  a  darkened  room  through 
long  spaces  of  time,  and  although  a  sojourn  in  Cuba 
had  greatly  benefited  her,  it  was  believed  she  could 
never  be  quite  restored  to  a  normal  state  of  well-being. 
Despite  such  serious  obstacles,  she  had  gently  per 
sisted  in  reading  and  study;  she  drew  and  painted, 
and  no  fear  of  flippant  remark  deterred  her  from  at 
tempting  even  to  learn  Hebrew.  At  the  same  time 
she  was  a  woman  of  the  most  exquisitely  natural  cul 
tivation  conceivable.  A  temperament  inclined  like 
hers,  from  the  beginning,  to  a  sweet  equanimity,  may 
have  been  assisted  towards  its  proper  culmination  by 
the  habit  of  patience  likely  enough  to  result  from  the 
continued  endurance  of  pain ;  but  a  serenity  so  benign 
and  so  purely  feminine  and  trustful  as  that  which  she 
not  displayed,  but  spontaneously  exhaled,  must  have 
rested  on  a  primary  and  plenary  inspiration  of  good 
ness.  All  that  she  knew  or  saw  sank  into  her  mind 
and  took  a  place  in  the  interior  harmony  of  it,  without 
ruffling  the  surface  ;  and  all  that  she  thought  or  uttered 
seemed  to  gain  a  fragrance  and  a  flower-like  quality 
from  having  sprung  thence.  Neither  were  strength  of 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  475 

character  and  practical  good  sense  absent  from  the  com 
pany  of  her  calm  wisdom  and  refinement.  In  brief, 
no  fitter  mate  for  Hawthorne  could  have  existed. 

Soon  after  their  acquaintance  began,  she  showed 
him,  one  evening,  a  large  outline  drawing  which  she 
had  made,  to  illustrate  "The  Gentle  Boy,"  and  asked 
him:  "  Does  that  look  like  Ilbrahim  ?  " 

Hawthorne,  without  other  demonstration,  replied 
quietly  :  "  Ilbrahim  will  never  look  otherwise  to  me." 

The  drawing  was  shown  to  Washington  Allston, 
who  accorded  it  his  praise ;  and  a  Miss  Burleigh,  who 
was  among  the  earliest  admirers  of  Hawthorne's  gen 
ius,  having  offered  to  pay  the  cost  of  an  engraving 
from  it,  the  design  was  reproduced  and  printed  with 
a  new  special  edition  of  the  story,  accompanied  by  a 
Preface,  and  a  Dedication  to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody. 
The  three  sisters  and  two  brothers  who  composed  the 
family  of  Dr.  Peabody  were  strongly  imbued  with  in 
tellectual  tastes :  nothing  of  importance  in  literature, 
art,  or  the  philosophy  of  education  escaped  them,  when 
once  it  was  brought  to  their  notice  by  the  facilities  of 
the  time.  Miss  Sophia  was  not  only  well  read  and  a 
very  graceful  amateur  in  the  practice  of  drawing  and 
painting,  but  evinced  furthermore  a  somewhat  remark 
able  skill  in  scidpture.  About  the  year  1831,  she 
modelled  a  bust  of  Laura  Bridgman,  the  blind  girl, 
who  was  then  a  child  of  twelve  years.  This  portrait 
not  only  was  said  to  be  a  very  good  likeness,  but  — 
although  it  is  marred  by  a  representation  of  the  pecul 
iar  band  used  to  protect  the  eyes  of  the  patient  —  has 
considerable  artistic  value,  and  attains  very  nearly  to 
a  classic  purity  of  form  and  treatment.  Miss  Peabody 
also  executed  a  medallion  portrait,  in  relief,  of  Charles 
Emerson,  the  brilliant  brother  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 


476  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

son,  whose  great  promise  was  frustrated  by  his  prema 
ture  death.  This  medallion  was  done  from  memory. 
The  artist  had  once  seen  Mr.  Emerson  while  he  was 
lecturing,  and  was  so  strongly  impressed  by  his  elo 
quent  profile  that,  on  going  home,  she  made  a  memory- 
sketch  of  it  in  pencil,  which  supplied  a  germ  for  the 
portrait  in  clay  which  she  attempted  after  his  death. 

The  appearance  of  the  "Twice-Told  Tales"  in  book- 
form  had,  like  that  of  the  "  Gentle  Boy  "  design,  been 
due  to  the  kindness  of  a  friend.  In  this  case  it  was 
Lieutenant  Bridge  who  became  responsible  for  the  ex 
pense  ;  and  the  volume  met  with,  if  not  much  pecun 
iary  success,  a  gratifying  literary  renown.  The  author 
sent  a  copy  to  Longfellow,  who  acknowledged  it  cor 
dially  ;  and  then  Hawthorne  wrote  him  as  follows : 

"  By  some  witchcraft  or  other  —  for  I  really  cannot 
assign  any  reasonable  cause  —  I  have  been  carried 
apart  from  the  main  current  of  life,  and  find  it  im 
possible  to  get  back  again.  Since  we  last  met,  which 
you  remember  was  in  SawtelTs  room,  where  you  read 
a  farewell  poem  to  the  relics  of  the  class  —  ever  since 
that  time  I  have  secluded  myself  from  society ;  and 
yet  I  never  meant  any  such  thing  nor  dreamed  what 
sort  of  life  I  was  going  to  lead.  .  .  .  For  the  last 
ten  years  I  have  not  lived,  but  only  dreamed  of  liv 
ing.  .  .  . 

"  As  to  my  literary  efforts,  I  do  not  think  much  of 
them,  neither  is  it  worth  while  to  be  ashamed  of  them. 
They  would  have  been  better,  I  trust,  if  written  under 
more  favorable  circumstances." 

But  Longfellow  broke  out,  as  it  were,  into  an  exult 
ing  ciy  over  them,  which  echoed  from  the  pages  of  the 
next  "  North  American  Keview."  l  His  notice  wag 

1  Vol.  45  (July,  1837),  p.  59. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  477 

hardly  a  criticism  ;  it  was  a  eulogy,  bristling1  with  the 
adornment  of  frequent  references  to  European  litera 
ture  ;  but  it  is  worth  while  to  recall  a  few  of  its  sen 
tences. 

"  When  a  star  rises  in  the  heavens,"  said  Longfel 
low,  "  people  gaze  after  it  for  a  season  with  the  naked 
eye,  and  with  such  telescopes  as  they  may  find.  In 
the  stream  of  thought,  which  flows  so  peacefully  deep 
and  clear  through  this  book,  we  see  the  bright  reflec* 
tion  of  a  spiritual  star,  after  which  men  will  be  prone 
to  gaze  '  with  the  naked  eye  and  with  the  spy-glasses 
of  criticism.'  ...  To  this  little  work  we  would  say, 
4  Live  ever,  sweet,  sweet  book.'  It  comes  from  the 
hand  of  a  man  of  genius.  Everything  about  it  has 
the  freshness  of  morning  and  of  May.  .  .  .  The  book, 
though  in  prose,  is  nevertheless  written  by  a  poet. 
He  looks  upon  all  things  in  a  spirit  of  love  and  with 
lively  sympathies.  A  calm,  thoughtful  face  seems  to 
be  looking  at  you  from  every  page ;  with  now  and  then 
a  pleasant  smile,  and  now  a  shade  of  sadness  steal 
ing  over  its  features.  Sometimes,  though  not  often,  it 
glares  wildly  at  you,  with  a  strange  and  painful  ex 
pression,  as,  in  the  German  romance,  the  bronze 
knocker  of  the  Archivarius  Lindhorst  makes  up  faces 
at  the  student  Anselm.  .  .  .  One  of  the  prominent 
characteristics  of  these  tales  is  that  they  are  national 
in  their  character.  The  author  has  wisely  chosen  his 
themes  among  the  traditions  of  New  England.  .  .  . 
This  is  the  right  material  for  story.  It  seems  as  nat 
ural  to  make  tales  out  of  old  tumble-down  traditions 
as  canes  and  snuff-boxes  out  of  old  steeples,  or  trees 
planted  by  great  men." 

This  hearty  utterance  of  Longfellow's  not  only  was 
of  advantage  to  the  young  author  publicly,  but  also 


478  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

doubtless  threw  a  bright  ray  of  encouragement  into 
the  morning-dusk  which  was  then  the  pervading  at- 
mosphere  of  his  little  study,  which  he  termed  his 
"  owl's  nest."  "  I  have  to-day,"  he  wrote  back,  "  re 
ceived  and  read  with  huge  delight,  your  review  of 
'  Hawthorne's  Twice-Told  Tales.'  I  frankly  own  that 
I  was  not  without  hopes  that  you  would  do  this  kind 
office  for  the  book ;  though  I  could  not  have  antici 
pated  how  very  kindly  it  would  be  done.  Whether 
or  no  the  public  will  agree  to  the  praise  which  you 
bestow  on  me,  there  are  at  least  five  persons  who 
think  you  the  most  sagacious  critic  on  earth,  viz., 
my  mother  and  two  sisters,  my  old  maiden  aunt,  and 
finally  the  strongest  believer  of  the  whole  five,  my  own 
self.  If  I  doubt  the  sincerity  and  earnestness  of  any 
of  my  critics,  it  shall  be  of  those  who  censure  me. 
Hard  would  be  the  lot  of  a  poor  scribbler,  if  he  may 
not  have  this  privilege." 

His  pleasant  intimacy  with  the  Peabodys  went  on  ; 
the  dawn  of  his  new  epoch  broadened,  and  he  began 
to  see  in  Miss  Sophia  Peabody  the  figure  upon  which 
his  hopes,  his  plans  for  the  future  converged.  Her 
father's  house  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  Charter  Street 
Burying-Ground,  oldest  of  the  Salem  cemeteries.  "A 
three-story  wooden  house  "  —  thus  he  has  described  it 
—  "  perhaps  a  century  old,  low-studded,  with  a  square 
front,  standing  right  upon  the  street,  and  a  small  en 
closed  porch,  containing  the  main  entrance,  affording 
a  glimpse  up  and  down  the  street  through  an  oval  win 
dow  on  each  side :  its  characteristic  was  decent  respec 
tability,  not  sinking  below  the  level  of  the  genteel." 
In  his  "  Note-Books  "  (July  4,  1837)  he  speaks  of  the 
old  graveyard.  "A  slate  gravestone  round  the  bor 
ders,  to  the  memory  of  '  Col.  John  Hathorne  Esq.,' 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  479 

who  died  in  1717.  This  was  the  witch-judge.  The 
stone  is  sunk  deep  into  the  earth,  and  leans  forward, 
and  the  grass  grows  very  long  around  it.  ...  Other 
Hathornes  lie  buried  in  a  range  with  him  on  either 
side.  ...  It  gives  strange  ideas,  to  think  how  con 
venient  to  Dr.  P 's  family  this  burial-ground  is, — 

the  monuments  standing  almost  within  arm's  reach  of 
the  side-windows  of  the  parlor  —  and  there  being  a 
little  gate  from  the  back-yard  through  which  we  step 
forth  upon  those  old  graves  aforesaid.  And  the  tomb 
of  the  P—  -  family  is  right  in  front,  and  close  to  the 
gate."  Among  the  other  Hathornes  interred  there 
are  Captain  Daniel,  the  privateersman,  and  a  Mr. 
John  Hathorne,  "grandson  of  the  Hon.  John  Ha- 
thorne,"  who  died  in  1758.  The  specification  of  his 
grandfather's  name,  with  the  prefix,  shows  that  the  re 
lentless  condemner  of  witches  was  still  held  in  honor 
at  Salem,  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Dr.  Peabody's  house  and  this  adjoining  burial-ground 
form  the  scene  of  the  unfinished  "  Dolliver  Romance," 
and  also  supply  the  setting  for  the  first  part  of  "  Dr. 
Grimshawe's  Secret."  In  the  latter  we  find  it  pictured 
with  a  Rembrandtesque  depth  of  tone  :  — 

"  It  stood  in  a  shabby  by-street  and  cornered  on  a 
graveyard.  .  .  .  Here  were  old  brick  tombs  with  curi 
ous  sculpture  on  them,  and  quaint  gravestones,  some 
of  which  bore  puffy  little  cherubs,  and  one  or  two 
others  the  effigies  of  eminent  Puritans,  wrought  out 
to  a  button,  a  fold  of  the  ruff,  and  a  wrinkle  of  the 
skull-cap.  .  .  .  Here  used  to  be  some  specimens  of 
English  garden  flowers,  which  could  not  be  accounted 
for  —  unless,  perhaps,  they  had  sprung  from  some 
English  maiden's  heart,  where  the  intense  love  of 
those  homely  things  and  regret  of  them  in  the  foreign 


480  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

land,  had  conspired  together  to  keep  their  vivifying 
principle.  .  .  .  Thus  rippled  and  surged  with  its  hun 
dreds  of  little  billows  the  old  graveyard  about  the 
house  which  cornered  upon  it ;  it  made  the  street 
gloomy  so  that  people  did  not  altogether  like  to  pass 
along  the  high  wooden  fence  that  shut  it  in  ;  and  the 
old  house  itself,  covering  ground  which  else  had  been 
thickly  sown  with  bodies,  partook  of  its  dreariness,  be 
cause  it  hardly  seemed  possible  that  the  dead  people 
should  not  get  up  out  of  their  graves  and  steal  in  to 
warm  themselves  at  this  convenient  fireside." 

This  was  the  place  in  which  Hawthorne  conducted 
his  courtship ;  but  we  ought  not  to  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that,  in  the  account  above  quoted,  he  was  writing 
imaginatively,  indulging  his  fancy,  and  dwelling  on 
particular  points  for  the  sake  of  heightening  the  effect. 
It  is  not  probable  that  he  associated  gloomy  fantasies 
with  his  own  experience  as  it  progressed  in  these  sur 
roundings.  Here  as  elsewhere  it  is  important  to  bear 
in  mind  the  distinction  which  Dr.  Lorinjr  has  made  : 

O 

"  Throughout  life,"  he  declares,  "  Hawthorne  led  a 
twofold  existence  —  a  real  and  a  supernatural.  As  a 
man,  he  was  the  realest  of  men.  From  childhood  to 
old  age,  he  had  great  physical  powers.  His  massive 
head  sat  upon  a  strong  and  muscular  neck,  and  his 
chest  was  broad  and  capacious.  His  strength  was 
great ;  his  hand  and  foot  were  large  and  well  made. 
...  In  walking,  he  had  a  firm  step  and  a  great  stride 
without  effort.  In  early  manhood  he  had  abounding 
health,  a  good  digestion,  a  hearty  enjoyment  of  food. 
His  excellent  physical  condition  gave  him  a  placid  and 
even  temper,  a  cheerful  spirit.  He  was  a  silent  man 
and  often  a  moody  one,  but  never  irritable  or  morose ; 
his  organization  was  too  grand  for  that.  He  was  a 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  481 

most  delightful  companion.  In  conversation  he  was 
never  controversial,  never  authoritative,  and  never  ab 
sorbing.  In  a  multitude  his  silence  was  oppressive ; 
but  with  a  single  companion  his  talk  flowed  on  sensi 
bly,  quietly,  and  full  of  wisdom  and  shrewdness.  He 
discussed  books  with  wonderful  acuteness,  sometimes 
with  startling  power,  and  with  an  unexpected  verdict, 
as  if  Shakespeare  were  discussing  Ben  Jon  son.  He 
analyzed  men,  their  characters  and  motives  and  capac 
ity,  with  great  penetration,  impartially  if  a  stranger 
or  an  enemy,  with  the  tenderest  and  most  touching 
justice  if  a  friend.  He  was  fond  of  the  companion 
ship  of  all  who  were  in  sympathy  with  this  real  and 
human  side  of  his  life."  But  there  was  another  side 
of  his  being,  for  which  we  may  adopt  the  name  that 
Dr.  Loring  has  given  it,  the  "  supernatural."  It  was 
this  which  gave  him  his  high  distinction.  "  When  he 
entered  upon  his  work  as  a  writer,  he  left"  behind 
him  his  other  and  accustomed  personality  by  which  he 
was  known  in  general  intercourse.  "  In  this  work  he 
allowed  no  interference,  he  asked  for  no  aid.  He  was 
shy  of  those  whose  intellectual  power  and  literary 
fame  might  seem  to  give  them  a  right  to  enter  his 
sanctuary.  In  an  assembly  of  illustrious  authors  and 
thinkers,  he  floated,  reserved  and  silent,  around  the 
margin  in  the  twilight  of  the  room,  and  at  last  van 
ished  into  the  outer  darkness  ;  and  when  he  was  gone, 
Mr.  Emerson  said  of  him  :  '  Hawthorne  rides  well  his 
horse  of  the  night.'  The  working  of  his  mind  was  so 
sacred  and  mysterious  to  him  that  he  was  impatient  of 
any  attempt  at  familiarity  or  even  intimacy  with  the 
divine  power  within  him.  His  love  of  personal  soli 
tude  was  a  ruling  passion,  his  intellectual  solitude  was 
an  overpowering  necessity.  ,  .  .  Hawthorne  said  him- 

VOL.  xii.  31 


482  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

self  that  his  work  grew  in  his  brain  as  it  went  on, 
and  was  beyond  his  control  or  direction,  for  nature 
was  his  guide.  ...  I  have  often  thought  that  he  un 
derstood  his  own  greatness  so  imperfectly,  that  he 
dared  not  expose  the  mystery  to  others,  and  that  the 
sacredness  of  his  genius  was  to  him  like  the  sacredness 
of  his  love." 

And  did  not  Hawthorne  write  to  his  betrothed  wife  ? 
—  "  Lights  and  shadows  are  continually  flitting  across 
my  inward  sky,  and  I  know  not  whence  they  come  nor 
whither  they  go ;  nor  do  I  inquire  too  closely  into 
them.  It  is  dangerous  to  look  too  minutely  into  such 
phenomena."  What  we  may  collect  and  set  down  of 
mere  fact  about  his  surroundings  and  his  acts  relates 
itself,  therefore,  mainly  to  his  outwardly  real  existence, 
to  the  mere  shell  or  mask  of  him,  which  was  all  that 
anybody  could  behold  with  the  eyes ;  and  as  for  the 
interior  and  ideal  existence,  it  is  not  likely  that  we 
shall  securely  penetrate  very  far,  where  his  own  im 
partial  and  introverted  gaze  stopped  short.  It  is  but 
a  rough  method  to  infer  with  brusque  self-confidence 
that  we  may  judge  from  a  few  words  here  and  there 
the  whole  of  his  thought  and  feeling.  A  fair  enough 
notion  may  be  formed  as  to  the  status  of  his  post- 
collegiate  life  in  Salem,  from  the  data  we  have,  but 
we  can  do  no  more  than  guess  at  its  formative  influ 
ence  upon  his  genius.  And  I  should  be  sorry  to  give 
an  impression  that  because  his  courtship  went  on  in 
the  old  house  by  the  graveyard,  of  which  he  has  writ 
ten  so  soberly,  there  was  any  shadow  of  melancholy 
upon  that  initiatory  period  of  a  new  happiness.  His 
reflections  concerning  the  spot  had  to  do  with  his  im 
aginative,  or  if  one  choose,  his  "  supernatural,"  exis 
tence  ;  what  actually  passed  there  had  to  do  with  the 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  483 

real  and  the  personal,  and  with  the  life  of  the  affec 
tions.  We  may  be  sure  that  the  meeting  of  two  such 
perfected  spirits,  so  in  harmony  one  with  another,  was 
attended  with  no  qualified  degree  of  joy.  If  it  was 
calm  and  reticent,  without  rush  of  excitement  or  ex 
uberant  utterance,  this  was  because  movement  at  its 
acme  becomes  akin  to  rest.  Let  us  leave  his  love  in 
that  sanctity  which,  in  his  own  mind,  it  shared  with 
his  genius. 

Picturesquely  considered,  however,  —  and  the  pict 
uresque  never  goes  very  deep,  —  it  is  certainly  inter 
esting  to  observe  that  Hawthorne  and  his  wife,  both 
of  Salem  families,  should  have  been  born  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  same  street,  within  the  sound  of  a  voice ; 
should  have  gone  in  separate  directions,  remaining  un 
aware  of  each  other's  existence ;  and  then  should  finally 
have  met,  when  well  beyond  their  first  youth,  in  an  old 
house  on  the  borders  of  the  ancient  burial-ground  in 
which  the  ancestors  of  both  reposed,  within  hail  of  the 
spot  where  both  had  first  seen  the  light. 

When  they  became  engaged,  there  was  opposition 
to  the  match  on  the  part  of  Hawthorne's  family,  who 
regarded  the  seemingly  confirmed  invalidism  of  Miss 
Peabody  as  an  insuperable  objection ;  but  this  could 
not  be  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  a  union  so  evi 
dently  pointed  out  by  providential  circumstance  and 
inherent  adaptability  in  those  who  were  to  be  the  par^ 
ties  to  it.  The  engagement  was  a  long  one ;  but  in 
the  interval  before  her  marriage  Miss  Peabody's  health 
materially  improved. 


484  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 


III. 

The  new  turn  of  affairs  of  course  made  Hawthorne 
impatient  to  find  some  employment  more  immediately 
productive  than  that  with  the  pen.  He  was  profoundly 
dissatisfied,  also,  with  his  elimination  from  the  active 
life  of  the  world.  "  I  am  tired  of  being  an  orna 
ment  !  "  he  said  with  great  emphasis,  to  a  friend.  "  I 
want  a  little  piece  of  land  of  my  own,  big  enough  to 
stand  upon,  big  enough  to  be  buried  in.  I  want  to 
have  something  to  do  with  this  material  world."  And, 
striking  his  hand  vigorously  upon  a  table  that  stood 
by :  "  If  I  could  only  make  tables,"  he  declared,  "  I 
should  feel  myself  more  of  a  man." 

President  Van  Buren  had  entered  on  the  second 
year  of  his  term,  and  Mr.  Bancroft,  the  historian,  was 
Collector  of  the  port  of  Boston.  One  evening  the  lat 
ter  was  speaking,  in  a  circle  of  whig  friends,  of  the 
splendid  things  which  the  democratic  administration 
was  doing  for  literary  men. 

"  But  there  's  Hawthorne,"  suggested  Miss  Eliza 
beth  Peabody,  who  was  present.  "  You  Ve  done  noth 
ing  for  him." 

"  He  won't  take  anything/7  was  the  answer :  "  he 
has  been  offered  places." 

In  fact,  Hawthorne's  friends  in  political  life,  Pierce 
and  Jonathan  Cilley,  had  urged  him  to  enter  politics ; 
and  at  one  time  he  had  been  offered  a  post  in  the 
West  Indies,  but  refused  it  because  he  would  not  live 
in  a  slaveholding  community. 

"  I  happen  to  know,"  said  Miss  Peabody,  "  that  he 
Would  be  very  glad  of  employment." 

The  result  was  that  a  small  position  in  the  Boston 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  485 

Custom  House  was  soon  awarded  to  the  young  au 
thor.  On  going  down  from  Salem  to  inquire  about 
it,  he  received  another  and  better  appointment  as 
weigher  and  ganger.  His  friend  Pike  was  installed 
there  at  the  same  time.  To  Longfellow,  Hawthorne 
wrote  in  good  spirits :  — 

"I  have  no  reason  to  doubt  my  capacity  to  fulfil 
the  duties  ;  for  I  don't  know  what  they  are.  They  tell 
me  that  a  considerable  portion  of  my  time  will  be  un 
occupied,  the  which  I  mean  to  employ  in  sketches  of 
my  new  experience,  under  some  such  titles  as  follows  : 
4  Scenes  In  Dock,'  4  Voyages  at  Anchor,'  '  Nibblings 
of  a  Wharf  Rat,'  '  Trials  of  a  Tide-Waiter,'  4  Romance 
of  the  Revenue  Service,'  together  with  an  ethical  work 
in  two  volumes  on  the  subject  of  Duties ;  the  first  vol 
ume  to  treat  of  moral  duties  and  the  second  of  duties 
imposed  by  the  revenue  laws,  which  I  begin  to  con 
sider  the  most  important." 

His  hopes  regarding  unoccupied  time  were  not  ful 
filled  ;  he  was  unable  to  write  with  freedom  during  his 
term  of  service  in  Boston,  and  the  best  result  of  it 
for  us  is  contained  in  those  letters,  extracts  from  which 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  published  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
"  American  Note-Books."  The  benefit  to  him  lay  in 
the  moderate  salary  of  $1,200,  from  which  the  cheap 
ness  of  living  at  that  time  and  his  habitual  economy 
enabled  him  to  lay  up  something  ;  and  in  the  contact 
with  others  which  his  work  involved.  He  might  have 
saved  time  for  writing  if  he  had  chosen  ;  but  the  wages 
of  the  wharf  laborers  depended  on  the  number  of 
hours  they  worked,  and  Hawthorne  —  true  to  his  in 
stinct  of  democratic  sympathy  and  of  justice  —  made 
it  a  point  to  reach  the  wharf  at  the  earliest  hour,  no 
matter  what  the  weather  might  be,  solely  for  the  con- 


486  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

venience  of  the  men.  "  It  pleased  me,"  he  says  in  one 
of  his  letters,  "  to  think  that  I  also  had  a  part  to  act 
in  the  material  and  tangible  business  of  life,  and  that 
a  portion  of  all  this  industry  could  not  have  gone  on 
without  my  presence." 

But  when  he  had  had  two  years  of  this  sort  of  toil 
the  Whigs  elected  a  President,  and  Hawthorne  was 
dropped  from  the  civil  service.  The  project  of  an 
ideal  community  just  then  presented  itself,  and  from 
Boston  he  went  to  Brook  Farm,  close  by  in  Roxbury. 
The  era  of  Transcendentalism  had  arrived,  and  Dr. 
George  Ripley,  an  enthusiastic  student  of  philosophy 
and  a  man  of  wide  information,  sought  to  give  the  new 
tendencies  a  practical  turn  in  the  establishment  of  a 
modified  socialistic  community.  The  Industrial  Asso 
ciation  which  he  proposed  to  plant  at  West  Roxbury 
was  wisely  planned  with  reference  to  the  conditions  of 
American  life ;  it  had  no  affinity  with  the  erratic  views 
of  Enfantin  or  St.  Simon,  nor  did  it  in  the  least  par 
take  of  the  errors  of  Robert  Owen  regarding  the  rela 
tion  of  the  sexes ;  although  it  agreed  with  Fourier  and 
Owen  both,  if  I  understand  the  aim  rightly,  in  respect 
of  labor.  Dr.  Ripley' s  simple  object  was  to  distrib 
ute  labor  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  all  men  time  for 
culture,  and  to  free  their  minds  from  the  debasing  in 
fluence  of  a  merely  selfish  competition.  "A  few  men 
of  like  views  and  feelings,"  one  of  his  sympathizers  has 
said,  "  grouped  themselves  around  him,  not  as  their 
master,  but  as  their  friend  and  brother,  and  the  com 
munity  at  Brook  Farm  was  instituted."  Charles  A. 
Dana  and  Minot  Pratt  were  leading  spirits  in  the  en 
terprise  ;  the  young  Brownson,  George  William  Curtis, 
and  Horace  Sumner  (a  younger  brother  of  Charles) 
were  also  engaged  in  it,  at  various  times.  The  place 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  487 

was  a  kind  of  granary  of  true  grit.  Hawthorne  has 
characterized  the  community  in  that  remark  which  he 
applied  to  Blithedale  :  "  They  were  mostly  individuals 
who  had  gone  through  such  an  experience  as  to  dis 
gust  them  with  ordinary  pursuits,  but  who  were  not 
yet  so  old,  nor  had  suffered  so  deeply,  as  to  lose  their 
faith  in  the  better  time  to  come."  Miss  E.  P.  Pea- 
body  had  at  that  time  left  Salem  and  begun  a  publish 
ing  business  in  Boston,  being  one  of  the  first  women 
of  our  time  to  embark  in  an  occupation  thought  to  ap 
pertain  exclusively  to  men  ;  and  at  her  rooms  some  of 
the  preliminary  meetings  of  the  new  association  were 
held.  Thus  it  happened  that  the  scheme  was  speedily 
brought  to  Hawthorne's  notice.  When  his  accession  to 
the  ranks  was  announced,  Dr.  Ripley,  as  he  said  to  the 
present  writer,  felt  as  if  a  miracle  had  occurred,  "  or 
as  if  the  heavens  would  presently  be  opened  and  we 
should  see  Jacob's  Ladder  before  us.  But  we  never 
came  any  nearer  to  having  that,  than  our  old  ladder 
in  the  barn,  from  floor  to  hayloft."  Besides  his  belief 
in  the  theory  of  an  improved  condition  of  society,  and 
his  desire  to  forward  its  accomplishment,  Hawthorne 
had  two  objects  in  joining  the  community:  one  of 
which  was  to  secure  a  suitable  and  economical  home 
after  marriage ;  the  other,  to  hit  upon  a  mode  of  life 
which  should  equalize  the  sum  of  his  exertions  between 
body  and  brain.  Many  persons  went  thither  in  just 
the  same  frame  of  mind. 

From  a  distance,  the  life  that  was  led  there  has  a 
very  pretty  and  idyllic  look.  There  was  teaching,  and 
there  was  intellectual  talk ;  there  was  hard  domestic 
and  farming  work  in  pleasant  companionship,  and  a 
general  effort  to  be  disinterested.  The  various  build 
ings  in  which  the  associators  found  shelter  were  bap- 


488  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

tized  with  cheerful  and  sentimental  names ;  The  Hi  76, 
The  Pilgrim  House,  The  Nest,  The  Eyrie,  and  The 
Cottage.  The  young  women  sang  as  they  washed  the 
dishes,  and  the  more  prepossessing  and  eligible  of  the 
yeomen  sometimes  volunteered  to  help  them  with  their 
unpoetic  and  saponaceous  task.  The  costume  of  the 
men  included  a  blouse  of  checked  or  plaided  stuff, 
belted  at  the  waist,  and  a  rough  straw  hat ;  and  the 
women  also  wore  hats,  in  defiance  of  the  fashion  then 
ruling,  and  chose  calico  for  their  gowns.  In  the  even 
ings,  poems  and  essays  composed  by  the  members,  or 
else  a  play  of  Shakespeare,  would  be  read  aloud  in  the 
principal  gathering  held  at  one  of  the  houses.  A  great 
deal  of  individual  liberty  was  allowed,  and  Hawthorne 
probably  availed  himself  of  this  to  keep  as  much  as 
possible  out  of  sight.  One  might  fancy,  on  a  casual 
glance,  that  Brook  Farm  was  the  scene  of  a  prolonged 
picnic.  But  it  was  not  so  at  all.  Hawthorne  had 
hoped  that  by  devoting  six  hours  a  day  to  mechanical 
employments,  he  could  earn  the  time  he  needed  for 
writing ;  but,  as  it  proved,  the  manual  labor  more 
nearly  consumed  sixteen  hours,  according  to  Dr.  Rip- 
ley,  who  declared  of  Hawthorne  that  "  he  worked  like 
a  dragon !  " 

Sundry  of  Hawthorne's  common  sense  observations 
and  conclusions  upon  the  advisability  of  his  remaining 
at  the  farm  are  to  be  found  in  his  "  Note-Books,"  and 
have  often  been  quoted  and  criticised.  They  show 
that,  as  might  be  expected  in  a  person  of  candor  and 
good  judgment,  he  was  considering  the  whole  phe 
nomenon  upon  the  practical  side.  There  is  an  in 
structive  passage  also  in  "  The  Blithedale  Romance," 
which  undoubtedly  refers  to  his  own  experience :  — 

"  Though  fond  of  society,  I  was  so  constituted  as  to 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  489 

need  these  occasional  retirements,  even  in  a  life  like 
that  of  Blithedale,  which  was  itself  characterized  by  a 
remoteness  from  the  world.  Unless  renewed  by  a  yet 
further  withdrawal  towards  the  inner  circle  of  self- 
communion,  I  lost  the  better  part  of  my  individuality. 
My  thoughts  became  of  little  worth,  and  my  sensibili 
ties  grew  as  arid  as  a  tuft  of  moss  .  .  .  crumbling  in 
the  sunshine,  after  long  expectance  of  a  shower." 

The  whole  thing  was  an  experiment  for  everybody 
concerned,  and  Hawthorne  found  it  best  to  withdraw 
from  a  further  prosecution  thereof,  as  persons  were 
constantly  doing  who  had  come  to  see  if  the  life  would 
suit  them.  He  had  contributed  a  thousand  dollars 
(the  chief  part  of  his  savings  in  the  Custom  House) 
to  the  funds  of  the  establishment ;  and,  some  time 
after  he  quitted  the  place,  an  effort  was  made  among 
the  most  influential  gentlemen  of  Brook  Farm  to  re 
store  this  sum  to  him,  although  they  were  not,  I  be 
lieve,  bound  to  do  so.  Whether  or  not  they  ever  car 
ried  out  this  purpose  has  not  been  learned.  The  com 
munity  flourished  for  four  years  and  was  financially 
sound,  but  in  1844  it  entered  into  bonds  of  brother 
hood  with  a  Fourieristic  organization  in  New  York, 
began  to  build  a  Phalanstery,  attempted  to  enlarge  its 
range  of  industry,  and  came  to  grief.  No  one  of  its 
chief  adherents  has  ever  written  its  history ;  but  per 
haps  Mr.  Frothingham  is  right  in  saying  that  "As 
pirations  have  no  history." l  At  all  events  Hawthorne, 
in  "  The  Blithedale  Romance,"  which  explicitly  dis 
claims  any  close  adherence  to  facts  or  any  criticism 
on  the  experiment,  has  furnished  the  best  chronicle  it 
has  had,  so  far  as  the  spirit  of  the  scheme  is  concerned. 

Having  tried  the  utmost  isolation  for  ten  years  iu 
1  Transcendentalism  in  New  England* 


490  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

Salem,  and  finding  it  unsatisfactory  ;  and  having 
made  a  venture  in  an  opposite  extreme  at  Brook  Farm, 
which  was  scarcely  more  to  his  liking,  Hawthorne  had 
unconsciously  passed  through  the  best  of  preparation 
for  that  family  life  of  comparative  freedom,  and  of 
solitude  alternating  with  a  gentle  and  perfect  compan 
ionship,  on  which  he  was  about  to  enter.  In  July, 
1842,  Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke,  of  Boston,  received 
the  following  note,  dated  from  54  Pinckney  Street, 
which  was  the  residence  of  Hawthorne's  friend,  George 
S.  Hillard:  — 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Though  personally  a  stranger  to 
you,  I  am  about  to  request  of  you  the  greatest  favor 
which  I  can  receive  from  any  man.  I  am  to  be  mar 
ried  to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody  ;  and  it  is  our  mutual 
desire  that  you  should  perform  the  ceremony.  Unless 
it  should  be  decidedly  a  rainy  day,  a  carriage  will  call 
for  you  at  half  past  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon. 
Very  respectfully  yours, 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

The  wedding  took  place  quietly,  and  Hawthorne 
carried  his  bride  to  the  Manse  at  Concord,  the  old 
parsonage  of  that  town.  It  belonged  to  the  descend 
ants  of  Dr.  Ezra  Ripley,  who  had  been  pastor  there  at 
the  close  of  the  last  century  ;  they  were  relatives  of 
the  George  Bipley  with  whom  Hawthorne  had  so  re 
cently  been  associated  at  Brook  Farm.  Hawthorne 
had  succeeded  in  hiring  the  place  for  a  time,  and  was 
happy  in  beginning  his  married  life  in  a  house  so  well 
in  keeping  with  his  tastes.  The  best  account  of  this, 
his  first  sojourn  in  Concord,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
"  American  Note-Books,"  and  in  the  Introduction  to 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  491 

the  "Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse."  Here  his  first 
child  was  born,  a  daughter,  to  whom  the  name  of  Una  l 
was  given,  from  "  The  Faerie  Queen  "  ;  and  here  he 
saw  something  of  Emerson  and  of  Margaret  Fuller. 
Among  his  visitors,  who  were  never  many,  was  George 
Stillman  Hillard,  a  Democrat,  a  lawyer,  an  editor,  an 
orator  in  high  favor  with  the  Bostonians,  and  the  au 
thor  of  several  works  both  of  travel  and  of  an  edu 
cational  kind.  Mr.  George  P.  Bradford,  with  whom 
Hawthorne  had  talked  and  toiled  at  Brook  Farm,  was 
a  cousin  of  the  Ripleys,  and  also  came  hither  as  a 
friend.  Another  Brook  Farmer  appeared  at  the 
Manse,  in  the  person  of  one  Frank  Farley,  a  man  of 
some  originality,  who  had  written  a  little  book  on 
natural  scenery  and  had  been  a  frontiersman,  but  was 
subject  to  a  mild,  loquacious  form  of  insanity.  (^Men- 
tion  of  him  as  "  Mr.  F "  is  made  in  the  "Ameri 
can  Note-Books,"  under  date  of  June  6  and  June  10, 
1844.)  A  writer  in  one  of  the  magazines  has  recorded 
the  impression  which  Hawthorne  left  on  the  minds  of 
others  who  saw  him  during  this  period,  but  did  not 
know  him.  Among  the  villagers  "  a  report  was  cur 
rent  that  this  man  Hawthorne  was  somewhat  uncanny 
—  in  point  of  fact,  not  altogether  sane.  My  friend,  the 
son  of  a  Concord  farmer  and  at  that  time  a  raw  college 
youth,  had  heard  these  bucolic  whisperings  as  to  the 
sanity  of  the  recluse  dweller  at  the  ancient  parsonage ; 
but  he  knew  nothing  of  the  man,  had  read  none  of  his 
productions,  and  of  course  took  no  interest  in  what 
was  said  or  surmised  about  him.  And  one  day,  cast 
ing  his  eye  toward  the  Manse  as  he  was  passing,  he 
saw  Hawthorne  up  the  pathway,  standing  with  folded 
a-rms  in  motionless  attitude,  and  with  eyes  fixed  upon 
1  She  died,  unmarried,  in  September,  1877. 


492  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

the  ground.  '  Poor  fellow,'  was  his  unspoken  com 
ment  :  '  he  does  look  as  if  he  might  be  daft.'  And 
when,  on  his  return  a  full  hour  afterward,  Hawthorne 
was  still  standing  in  the  same  place  and  attitude,  the 
lad's  very  natural  conclusion  was,  4  The  man  is  daft, 
sure  enough !  '  Mr.  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson 
has  presented  quite  a  different  view,  in  his  "  Short 
Studies  of  American  Authors."  He  says  :  — 

u  The  self-contained  purpose  of  Hawthorne,  the  large 
resources,  the  waiting  power,  —  these  seem  to  the  im 
agination  to  imply  an  ample  basis  of  physical  life ; 
and  certainly  his  stately  and  noble  port  is  inseparable, 
in  my  memory,  from  these  characteristics.  Vivid  as 
this  impression  is,  I  yet  saw  him  but  twice,  and  never 
spoke  to  him.  I  first  met  him  on  a  summer  morning, 
in  Concord,  as  he  was  walking  along  the  road  near  the 
Old  Manse,  with  his  wife  by  his  side  and  a  noble  look 
ing  baby-boy  in  a  little  wagon  which  the  father  was 
pushing.  I  remember  him  as  tall,  firm,  and  strong  in 
bearing.  .  .  .  When  I  passed,  Hawthorne  lifted  upon 
me  his  great  gray  eyes  with  a  look  too  keen  to  seem 
indifferent,  too  shy  to  be  sympathetic — and  that  was 
all."1 

Hawthorne's  plan  of  life  was  settled  ;  he  was  happily 
married,  and  the  problems  of  his  youth  were  solved : 
his  character  and  his  genius  were  formed.  From  this 
point  on,  therefore,  his  works  and  his  "  Note- Books  " 
impart  the  essentials  of  his  career.  The  main  business 
of  the  biographer  is,  after  this,  to  put  together  that 
which  will  help  to  make  real  the  picture  of  the  author 
grappling  with  those  transient  emergencies  that  consti- 

1  The  allusion  to  a  baby-boy  is  confusing,  because  Mr.  Julian  Haw 
thorne  was  not  born  at  Concord,  and  when  the  family  returned  thitbeT 
to  occupy  The  Wayside,  he  was  about  six  years  old. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  493 

tute  the  tangible  part  of  his  history.  A  few  extracts 
from  letters  written  to  Horatio  Bridge,  heretofore  un 
published,  come  under  this  head. 

Concord,  March  25,  1843. — "  I  did  not  come  to  see 
you,  because  I  was  very  short  of  cash  —  having  been 
disappointed  in  money  that  I  had  expected  from  three 
or  four  sources.  My  difficulties  of  this  kind  some 
times  make  me  sigh  for  the  regular  monthly  payments 
of  the  Custom  House.  The  system  of  slack  payments 
in  this  country  is  most  abominable.  ...  I  find  no 
difference  in  anybody  in  this  respect,  for  all  do  wrong 

alike.  is  just  as  certain  to  disappoint  me  in 

money  matters  as  any  little  pitiful  scoundrel  among 
the  booksellers.  For  my  part,  I  am  compelled  to  dis 
appoint  those  who  put  faith  in  my  engagements ;  and 
so  it  goes  round." 

The  following  piece  of  advice  with  regard  to  notes 
for  the  "  Journal  of  an  African  Cruiser,"  by  Mr. 
Bridge,  which  Hawthorne  was  to  edit,  is  worth  ob 
serving  and  has  never  before  been  given  to  the  pub 
lic  :- 

"  I  would  advise  you  not  to  stick  too  accurately  to 
the  bare  facts,  either  in  your  descriptions  or  your  nar 
ratives  ;  else  your  hand  will  be  cramped,  and  the  re 
sult  will  be  a  want  of  freedom  that  will  deprive  you 
of  a  higher  truth  than  that  which  you  strive  to  attain. 
Allow  your  fancy  pretty  free  license,  and  omit  no 
heightening  touches  merely  because  they  did  not 
chance  to  happen  before  your  eyes.  If  they  did  not 
happen,  they  at  least  ought  —  which  is  all  that  con 
cerns  you.  This  is  the  secret  of  all  entertaining  trav 
ellers.  .  .  .  Begin  to  write  always  before  the  impres 
sion  of  novelty  has  worn  off  from  your  mind  ;  else  you 
will  soon  begin  to  think  that  the  peculiarities  which 


494  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

at  first  interested  you  are  not  worth  recording ;  yet 
these  slight  peculiarities  are  the  very  things  that  make 
the  most  vivid  impression  upon  the  reader."  In  this 
same  letter  (May  3,  1843)  he  reverts  to  the  finan 
cial  difficulty,  and  speaks  of  a  desire  to  obtain  office 
again,  but  adds :  "It  is  rather  singular  that  I  should 
need  an  office;  for  nobody's  scribblings  seem  to  be 
more  acceptable  to  the  public  than  mine ;  and  yet  I 
still  find  it  a  tough  match  to  gain  a  respectable  living 
by  my  pen." 

By  November  of  1844  he  had  put  things  seriously 
in  train  for  procuring  another  government  position  ; 
Polk  having  been  elected  to  the  Presidency.  There 
was  a  rumor  that  Tyler  had  actually  fixed  upon  Haw 
thorne  for  the  postmastership  of  Salem,  but  had  been 
induced  to  withdraw  the  name  ;  and  this  was  the  office 
upon  which  he  fixed  his  hope ;  but  a  hostile  party 
made  itself  felt  in  Salem,  which  raised  all  possible 
obstacles,  and  apparently  Hawthorne's  former  chief, 
Mr.  Bancroft,  —  it  may  have  been  for  some  reason 
connected  with  political  management,  —  opposed  his 
nomination.  Early  in  October,  1845,  Hawthorne 
made  his  farewell  to  the  Old  Manse,  never  to  return 
to  the  shelter  of  its  venerable  and  high-shouldered 
roof.  Once  more  he  went  to  Salem,  and  halted  in 
Herbert  Street.  The  postmastership  had  proved  un 
attainable,  but  there  was  a  prospect  of  his  becoming 
Naval  Officer  or  Surveyor.  The  latter  position  was 
given  him  at  length ;  but  not  until  the  spring  of 
1846.  On  first  arriving  at  Salem,  he  wrote  to  Bridge: 
"  Here  I  am,  again  established  —  in  the  old  chamber 
where  I  wasted  so  many  years  of  my  life.  I  find  it 
rather  favorable  to  my  literary  duties ;  for  I  have  al 
ready  begun  to  sketch  out  the  story  for  Wiley  &  Put« 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  495 

nam,"  an  allusion  to  something  intended  to  fill  out  a 
volume  of  the  "  Mosses,"  already  negotiated  for.  Af 
ter  his  installation  as  Surveyor  he  wrote,  speaking 
of  his  "moderate  prosperity,"  and  said  further:  "I 
have  written  nothing  for  the  press  since  my  entrance 
into  office,  but  intend  to  begin  soon.  My  '  Mosses ' 
seem  to  have  met  with  good  acceptance."  Time  went 
on,  however,  and  he  remained,  so  far  as  literary  pro 
duction  was  concerned,  inert.  He  had  left  the  Man 
ning  homestead  and  hired  a  house  in  Chestnut  Street, 
which  he  kept  for  a  year  and  a  half.  During  this 
period  Mrs.  Hawthorne  went  to  Boston  for  a  time, 
and  in  Carver  Street,  Boston,  was  born  their  second 
child  and  only  son,  Mr.  Julian  Hawthorne,  who  has 
since  made  a  reputation  for  himself  as  a  novelist. 
From  Chestnut  Street  he  went  to  another  house,  in 
Mall  Street ;  and  it  was  there  that  "  The  Scarlet  Let 
ter  "  was  finished,  in  1850,  four  years  after  he  had  an 
nounced  to  Bridge  that  he  intended  soon  to  begin 
composition.  The  Custom  House  routine  disturbed 
his  creative  moods  and  caused  a  gradual  postponement 
of  literary  effort.  Of  the  figure  that  he  made  while 
fulfilling  the  functions  assigned  to  him,  slight  traces 
have  been  left.  We  are  told,  for  example,  that  two 
Shakers,  leaders  in  their  community,  visited  the  Cus 
tom  House  one  day,  and  were  conducted  through  its 
several  departments.  On  the  way  out,  they  passed 
Hawthorne,  and  no  sooner  had  they  left  his  room 
than,  the  door  being  shut  behind  them,  the  elder 
brother  asked  with  great  interest  who  that  man  was. 
After  referring  to  the  strong  face,  "  and  those  eyes, 
the  most  wonderful  he  had  ever  beheld,"  he  said : 
"  Mark  my  words,  that  man  will  in  some  way  make  a 
deep  impression  upon  the  world."  It  is  also  remem- 


496  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

bered  that  a  rough  and  overbearing  sea-captain  at 
tempted  to  interfere  with  Hawthorne's  exercise  of  his 
duty  as  an  inspector  of  the  customs,  in  charge  of  the 
ship.  His  attempt  "  was  met  with  such  a  terrific  up 
rising  of  spiritual  and  physical  wrath  that  the  dis 
mayed  captain  fled  up  the  wharf  "  and  took  refuge 
with  the  Collector,  "  inquiring  with  a  sailor's  emotion 
and  a  sailor's  tongue  :  '  What  in  God's  name  have  you 
sent  on  board  my  ship  for  an  inspector  ? ' '  Unex 
pectedly,  in  the  winter  of  1849,  he  was  deprived  of  his 
surveyorship  ;  a  great  surprise  to  him,  because  he  had 
understood  certain  of  his  fellow-citizens  of  Salem  to 
have  given  a  pledge  that  they  would  not  seek  his  re 
moval,  and  it  appeared  that  they  had,  notwithstanding, 
gone  to  work  to  oust  him. 

On  finding  himself  superseded,  he  walked  away  from 
the  Custom  House,  returned  home,  and  entering  sat 
down  in  the  nearest  chair,  without  uttering  a  word. 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  asked  him  if  he  was  well. 

"  Well  enough,"  was  the  answer. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  then  ?  "  said  she.  "  Are  you 
'decapitated?'" 

He  replied  with  gloom  that  he  was,  and  that  the  oc 
currence  was  no  joke. 

"  Oh,"  said  his  wife,  gayly,  "  now  you  can  write  your 
Romance  !  "  For  he  had  told  her  several  times  that 
he  had  a  romance  "  growling  "  in  him. 

"  Write  my  Romance  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  But  what 
are  we  to  do  for  bread  and  rice,  next  week  ?  " 

"  I  will  take  care  of  that,"  she  answered.  "  And  I 
will  tell  Ann  to  put  a  fire  in  your  study,  now." 

Hawthorne  was  oppressed  with  anxiety  as  to  means 
of  support  for  his  wife  and  children ;  the  necessity  of 
writing  for  immediate  returns  always  had  a  deterrent 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  497 

and  paralyzing  effect  on  his  genius ;  and  lie  was 
amazed  that  Mrs.  Hawthorne  should  take  his  calam 
ity  with  so  much  lightness.  He  questioned  her  again 
regarding  the  wherewithal  to  meet  their  current  needs, 
knowing  well  that  he  himself  had  no  fund  in  reserve. 
His  habit  had  been  to  hand  her  the  instalments  of 
salary  as  they  came  to  him  from  the  office  ;  and  when 
he  was  in  need  of  money  for  himself  he  drew  again 
upon  her  for  it.  He  therefore  supposed  that  every 
thing  had  been  used  up  from  week  to  week.  But  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  now  disclosed  the  fact  that  she  had  about 
a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  a  sum  which  for  them  was 
a  considerable  one,  their  manner  of  living  being  ex 
tremely  plain.  Greatly  astonished,  he  asked  her  where 
she  had  obtained  so  much. 

"  You  earned  it,"  she  replied,  cheerily. 

Mrs.  Hawthorne  was  in  fact  overjoyed,  on  his  ac 
count,  that  he  had  lost  his  place ;  feeling  as  she  did 
that  he  would  now  resume  his  proper  employment. 
The  fire  was  built  in  the  study,  and  Hawthorne,  stim 
ulated  by  his  wife's  good  spirits,  set  at  once  about  writ 
ing  "  The  Scarlet  Letter." 

Some  six  months  of  time  were  required  for  its 
completion,  and  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  who  was  aware  that 
her  savings  would  be  consumed  in  a  third  of  that 
space,  applied  herself  to  increasing  the  small  stock  of 
cash,  so  that  her  husband's  mind  might  remain  free 
and  buoyant  for  his  writing.  She  began  making  little 
cambric  lamp-shades,  which  she  decorated  with  deli- 
rate  outline  drawings  and  sent  to  Boston  for  sale. 
They  were  readily  purchased,  and,  by  continuing  their 
manufacture,  this  devoted  wife  contrived  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  the  household  until  the  book  was  finished. 

Mr.  James  T.  Fields,  the  publisher  who  was  already 


£98  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

an  acquaintance,  and  eventually  became  a  friend,  of 
Hawthorne's  had  been  told  of  the  work,  and  went 
down  to  Salein  to  suggest  bringing  it  out.  This  was 
before  the  story  had  been  fully  elaborated  into  its 
present  form.  Hawthorne  had  written  steadily  all 
day,  and  every  day,  from  the  start,  but,  remember 
ing  in  what  small  quantity  his  books  sold,  he  had  come 
to  consider  this  new  attempt  a  forlorn  hope.  Mr. 
Fields  found  him  despondent,  and  thus  narrates  the 
close  of  the  interview :  — 

"  I  looked  at  my  watch  and  found  that  the  train 
would  soon  be  starting  for  Boston,  and  I  knew  there 
was  not  much  time  to  lose  in  trying  to  discover  what 
had  been  his  literary  work  during  these  last  few  years 
in  Salem.  I  remember  that  I  pressed  him  to  reveal 
to  me  what  he  had  been  writing.  He  shook  his  head, 
and  gave  me  to  understand  that  he  had  produced 
nothing.  At  that  moment  I  caught  sight  of  a  bureau 
or  set  of  drawers  near  where  we  were  sitting ;  and 
immediately  it  occurred  to  me  that,  hidden  away  some 
where  in  that  article  of  furniture,  was  a  story  or  sto 
ries  by  the  author  of  the  '  Twice-Told  Tales,'  and  I 
became  so  confident  that  I  charged  him  vehemently 
with  the  fact.  He  seemed  surprised,  I  thought,  but 
shook  his  head  again  ;  and  I  rose  to  take  my  leave, 
begging  him  not  to  come  into  the  cold  entry,  saying  I 
would  come  back  and  see  him  again  in  a  few  days.  I 
was  hurrying  down  the  stairs  when  he  called  after 
me  from  the  chamber,  asking  me  to  stop  a  moment. 
Then,  quickly  stepping  into  the  entry  with  a  roll  of 
manuscript  in  his  hands,  he  said :  '  How  in  Heaven's 
name  did  you  know  this  thing  was  here  ?  As  you 
have  found  me  out,  take  what  I  have  written,  and  tel] 
me,  after  you  get  home  and  have  time  to  read  it,  if  it 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  499 

is  good  for  anything.  It  is  either  very  good  or  very 
bad  —  I  don't  know  which.'  On  my  way  up  to  Bos 
ton  I  read  the  germ  of  '  The  Scarlet  Letter ; 3  before 
I  slept  that  night  I  wrote  him  a  note  all  aglow  with 
admiration  of  the  marvellous  story  he  had  put  into  my 
hands." 

In  a  letter  to  Bridge  (April  10,  1850),  the  author 
said  :  "  c  The  Scarlet  Letter '  has  sold  well,  the  first  edi 
tion  having  been  exhausted  in  ten  days,  and  the  second 
(5,000  in  all)  promising  to  go  off  rapidly."  Speaking 
of  the  excitement  created  among  his  townspeople  by 
the  introductory  account  of  the  Custom  House,  he  con 
tinued  :  "As  to  the  Salem  people,  I  really  thought  I 
had  been  exceedingly  good-natured  in  my  treatment  of 
them.  They  certainly  do  not  deserve  good  usage  at 
my  hands,  after  permitting  me  ...  to  be  deliberately 
lied  down,  not  merely  once  but  at  two  separate  attacks, 
on  two  false  indictments,  without  hardly  a  voice  being 
raised  on  my  behalf ;  and  then  sending  one  of  their 
false  witnesses  to  Congress  and  choosing  another  as 
their  Mayor.  I  feel  an  infinite  contempt  for  them, 
and  probably  have  expressed  more  of  it  than  I  in 
tended;  for  my  preliminary  chapter  has  caused  the 
greatest  uproar  that  ever  happened  here  since  witch- 
times.  If  I  escape  from  town  without  being  tarred 
and  feathered,  I  shall  consider  it  good  luck.  I  wish 
they  would  tar  and  feather  me  —  it  would  be  such  an 
entirely  new  distinction  for  a  literary  man !  And 
from  such  judges  as  my  fellow-citizens,  I  should  look 
upon  it  as  a  higher  honor  than  a  laurel-crown."  In 
the  same  letter  he  states  that  he  has  taken  a  house 
in  Lenox,  and  shall  move  to  it  on  the  1st  of  May : 
"I  thank  Mrs.  Bridge  for  her  good  wishes  as  respects 
iny  future  removals  from  office ;  but  I  should  be  sorry 


500  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

to  anticipate  such  bad  fortune  as  ever  again  being  ap 
pointed  to  me." 

Previous  to  this,  he  had  written  :  "I  long  to  get 
into  the  country,  for  my  health  latterly  is  not  quite 
what  it  has  been  for  many  years  past.  I  should  not 
long  stand  such  a  life  of  bodily  inactivity  and  mental 
exertion  as  I  have  led  for  the  last  few  months.  An 
hour  or  two  of  daily  labor  in  a  garden,  and  a  daily 
ramble  in  country  air  or  on  the  sea-shore,  would  keep 
me  all  right.  Here  I  hardly  go  out  once  a  week.  .  .  . 
I  detest  this  town  so  much,  that  I  hate  to  go  into  the 
streets,  or  to  have  the  people  see  me.  Anywhere  else 
I  should  at  once  be  another  man." 

It  was  not  a  very  comfortable  home,  that  small  red 
wooden  house  at  Lenox,  overlooking  the  beautiful 
valley  of  the  Housatonic  and  surrounded  by  moun 
tains  ;  but  both  Hawthorne  and  his  wife  bravely  made 
the  best  of  it.  Mrs.  Hawthorne  ornamented  an  entire 
set  of  plain  furniture,  painted  a  dull  yellow,  with  copies 
from  Flaxman's  outlines,  executed  with  great  perfec 
tion  ;  and,  poor  as  the  place  was,  it  soon  became  in 
vested  by  its  occupants  with  something  of  a  poetic  at 
mosphere.  After  a  summer's  rest,  Hawthorne  began 
"The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  ;  "  writing  to  Bridge 
in  October :  — 

" 1  am  getting  so  deep  into  my  own  book,  that  I  am 
afraid  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  attend  properly 
to  my  editorial  duties"  (connected  with  a  new  edi 
tion  of  Lieutenant  Bridge's  "Journal  of  an  African 
Cruiser  ").  ..."  Una  and  Julian  grow  apace,  and  so 
do  our  chickens,  of  which  we  have  two  broods.  There 
is  one  difficulty  about  these  chickens,  as  well  as  about 
the  older  fowls.  We  have  become  so  intimately  ac 
quainted  with  every  individual  of  them,  that  it  really 


_!_«.     e^k^ 

4-  &t~ 


-y^   '  s'- 

£****+•  f         &.      f-  -i_  ^W  -u-  fLs^f 


^ 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  503 

seems  like  cannibalism  to  think  of  eating  them.  What 
is  to  be  done  ?  " 

His  task  occupied  him  all  winter.  To  Mr.  Fields 
at  length,  on  the  27th  of  January,  1851,  he  sent  the 
following  message :  — 

"  I  intend  to  put  '  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables ' 
into  the  expressman's  hands  to-day ;  so  that,  if  you  do 
not  soon  receive  it,  you  may  conclude  that  it  has  mis 
carried  —  in  which  case,  I  shall  not  consent  to  the 
universe  existing  a  moment  longer.  I  have  no  copy 
of  it,  except  the  wildest  scribble  of  a  first  draught ;  so 
that  it  could  never  be  restored. 

"  It  has  met  with  extraordinary  success  from  that 
portion  of  the  public  to  whose  judgment  it  has  been 
submitted :  viz.  from  my  wife.  I  likewise  prefer  it  to 
'  The  Scarlet  Letter  ; '  but  an  author's  opinion  of  his 
book,  just  after  completing  it,  is  worth  little  or  noth 
ing  ;  he  being  then  in  the  hot  or  cold  fit  of  a  fever,  and 
certain  to  rate  it  too  high  or  too  low.  It  has  undoubt 
edly  one  disadvantage  in  being  brought  so  close  to  the 
present  time,  whereby  its  romantic  improbabilities  be 
come  more  glaring." 

The  f ac  simile  of  a  part  of  the  above  letter  which  is 
reproduced  here  serves  as  a  fairly  good  specimen  of 
Hawthorne's  handwriting.  At  the  time  when  it  was 
written,  he  was  not  very  well,  and  the  fatigue  of  his 
long  labor  upon  the  book  rendered  the  chirography 
somewhat  less  clear  in  this  case  than  it  often  was.  The 
lettering  in  his  manuscripts  was  somewhat  larger,  and 
was  still  more  distinct  than  that  in  his  correspondence. 

After  the  new  romance  had  come  out  and  had  met 
with  a  flattering  reception,  he  inquired  of  Bridge 
(July  22, 1851)  :  "  Why  did  you  not  write  and  tell  me 
how  you  liked  (or  how  you  did  not  like)  '  The  House  of 


504  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

the  Seven  Gables  ? '  Did  you  feel  shy  about  express, 
ing  an  unfavorable  opinion  ?  It  would  not  have  hurt 
me  in  the  least,  though  I  am  always  glad  to  please 
you ;  but  I  rather  think  I  have  reached  the  stage 
when  I  do  not  care  very  essentially  one  way  or  the 
other  for  anybody's  opinion  on  any  one  production. 
On  this  last  romance,  for  instance,  I  have  heard  and 
seen  such  diversity  of  judgment  that  I  should  be  al 
together  bewildered  if  I  attempted  to  strike  a  balance ; 
—  so  I  take  nobody's  estimate  but  my  own.  I  think 
it  is  a  work  more  characteristic  of  my  mind,  and  more 
natural  and  proper  for  me  to  write,  than  '  The  Scarlet 
Letter '  —  but  for  that  very  reason  less  likely  to  interest 
the  public.  ...  As  long  as  people  will  buy,  I  shall 
keep  at  work,  and  I  find  that  my  facility  of  labor  in 
creases  with  the  demand  for  it." 

In  the  May  of  1851  another  daughter  was  added 
to  his  family.  Hawthorne,  like  his  father,  had  one  son 
and  two  daughters.  Of  this  youngest  one  he  wrote  to 
Pike,  two  months  after  her  birth:  "She  is  a  very 
bright  and  healthy  child.  ...  I  think  I  feel  more  in 
terest  in  her  than  I  did  in  the  other  children  at  the 
same  age,  from  the  consideration  that  she  is  to  be  the 
daughter  of  my  age  —  the  comfort  (so  it  is  to  be 
hoped)  of  my  declining  years."  There  are  some  other 
interesting  points  in  this  communication.  "What  a 
sad  account  you  give  of  your  solitude,  in  your  letter ! 
I  am  not  likely  ever  to  have  that  feeling  of  loneliness 
which  you  express;  and  I  most  heartily  wish  you 
would  take  measures  to  remedy  it  in  your  own  case, 
by  marrying.  .  .  .  Whenever  you  find  it  quite  intol 
erable  (and  I  can  hardly  help  wishing  that  it  may  be* 
come  so  soon),  do  come  to  me.  By  the  way,  if  I  con 
tinue  to  prosper  as  hitherto  in  the  literary  line,  I  shall 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  505 

soon  be  in  a  condition  to  buy  a  place ;  and  if  you 
should  hear  of  one,  say  worth  from  $1,500  to  f  2,000, 
I  wish  you  would  keep  your  eye  on  it  for  me.  I 
should  wish  it  to  be  on  the  sea-coast,  or  at  all  events 
within  easy  access  to  the  sea.  Very  little  land  would 
suit  my  purpose,  but  I  want  a  good  house,  with  space 
inside.  ...  I  find  that  I  do  not  feel  at  home  among 
these  hills,  and  should  not  consider  myself  perma 
nently  settled  here.  I  do  not  get  acclimated  to  the 
peculiar  state  of  the  atmosphere ;  and,  except  in  mid 
winter,  I  am  continually  catching  cold,  and  am  never 
so  vigorous  as  I  used  to  be  on  the  sea-coast.  .  .  .  Why 
did  you  not  express  your  opinion  of  '  The  House  of 
the  Seven  Gables  ?'...!  should  receive  friendly 
censure  with  just  as  much  equanimity  as  if  it  were 
praise  ;  though  certainly  I  had  rather  you  would  like 
the  book  than  not.  At  any  rate,  it  has  sold  finely, 
and  seems  to  have  pleased  a  good  many  people  better 
than  the  other  ;  and  I  must  confess  that  I  myself  am 
among  the  number.  .  .  .  When  I  write  another  ro< 
mance  I  shall  take  the  Community  for  a  subject,  and 
shall  give  some  of  my  experiences  at  Brook  Farm." 

On  the  first  day  of  December,  1851,  he  left  Lenox 
with  his  wife  and  children,  betaking  himself  for  the 
winter  to  West  Newton,  a  suburban  village  a  few 
miles  west  of  Boston,  on  the  Charles  River ;  there  to 
remain  until  he  could  effect  the  purchase  of  a  house 
which  could  serve  him  as  a  settled  home.  The  house 
that  he  finally  selected  was  an  old  one  in  the  town 
of  Concord,  about  a  mile  easterly  from  the  centre  of 
the  village  on  the  road  to  Lexington,  and  was  then 
the  property  of  Mrs.  Bronson  Alcott.  During  the 
winter  at  West  Newton  he  wrote  "  The  Blithedale 
Romance,"  which  was  published  early  in  1852.  In  the 


506  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

brief  term  of  two  years  and  a  half  from  the  moment 
of  his  leaving  the  Custom  House  at  Salem,  lie  had 
thus  produced  four  books,  —  "  The  Scarlet  Letter," 
"The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  "A  Wonder- 
Book  for  Boys  and  Girls,"  and  "  The  Blithedale  Ro 
mance,"  —  three  of  them  being  the  principal  works  of 
his  lifetime,  with  which  "  The  Marble  Faun  "  alone 
stands  in  the  same  category.  Early  in  the  summer  of 
1852  he  took  up  his  residence  in  his  new  home,  The 
Wayside,  of  which  he  thus  discoursed  to  Mr.  George 
William  Curtis,  on  the  14th  of  July,  1852 :  - 

MY  DEAR  HOWADJI,  —  I  think  (and  am  glad  to 
think)  that  you  will  find  it  necessary  to  come  hither 
in  order  to  write  your  Concord  Sketches ;  and  as  for 
my  old  house,  you  will  understand  it  better  after 
spending  a  day  or  two  in  it.  Before  Mr.  Alcott  took 
it  in  hand,  it  was  a  mean-looking  affair,  with  two 
peaked  gables ;  no  suggestiveness  about  it  and  no  ven- 
erableness,  although  from  the  style  of  its  construction 
it  seems  to  have  survived  beyond  its  first  century.  He 
added  a  porch  in  front,  and  a  central  peak,  and  a 
piazza  at  each  end,  and  painted  it  a  rusty  olive  hue, 
and  invested  the  whole  with  a  modest  picturesqueness ; 
all  which  improvements,  together  with  its  situation  at 
the  foot  of  a  wooded  hill,  make  it  a  place  that  one 
notices  and  remembers  for  a  few  moments  after  pass 
ing  it.  Mr.  Alcott  expended  a  good  deal  of  taste  and 
some  money  (to  no  great  purpose)  in  forming  the  hill 
side  behind  the  house  into  terraces,  and  building  ar 
bors  and  summer-houses  of  rough  stems  and  branches 
and  trees,  on  a  system  of  his  own.  They  must  have 
been  very  pretty  in  their  day,  and  are  so  still,  although 
much  decayed,  and  shattered  more  and  more  by  every 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  507 

breeze  that  blows.  The  hill-side  is  covered  chiefly  with 
locust-trees,  which  come  into  luxuriant  blossom  in  the 
month  of  June,  and  look  and  smell  very  sweetly,  in 
termixed  with  a  few  young  elms  and  some  white-pines 
and  infant  oaks,  —  the  whole  forming  rather  a  thicket 
than  a  wood.  Nevertheless,  there  is  some  very  good 
shade  to  be  found  there.  I  spend  delectable  hours 
there  in  the  hottest  part  of  the  day,  stretched  out  at 
my  lazy  length,  with  a  book  in  my  hand  or  an  unwrit 
ten  book  in  my  thoughts.  There  is  almost  always  a 
breeze  stirring  along  the  sides  or  brow  of  the  hill. 

From  the  hill-top  there  is  a  good  view  along  the  ex 
tensive  level  surfaces  and  gentle,  hilly  outlines,  covered 
with  wood,  that  characterize  the  scenery  of  Concord. 
We  have  not  so  much  as  a  gleam  of  lake  or  river  in 
the  prospect ;  if  there  were,  it  would  add  greatly  to 
the  value  of  the  place  in  my  estimation. 

The  house  stands  within  ten  or  fifteen  feet  of  the 
old  Boston  road  (along  which  the  British  marched  and 
retreated),  divided  from  it  by  a  fence,  and  some  trees 
and  shrubbery  of  Mr.  Alcott's  setting  out.  Where 
upon  I  have  called  it  "  The  Wayside,"  which  I  think 
a  better  name  and  more  morally  suggestive  than  that 
which,  as  Mr.  Alcott  has  since  told  me,  he  bestowed 
on  it,  —  "  The  Hill-Side."  In  front  of  the  house,  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  road,  I  have  eight  acres  of 
land,  —  the  only  valuable  portion  of  the  place  in  a 
farmer's  eye,  and  which  are  capable  of  being  made 
very  fertile.  On  the  hither  side,  my  territory  extends 
some  little  distance  over  the  brow  of  the  hill,  and  is 
absolutely  good  for  nothing,  in  a  productive  point  of 
view,  though  very  good  for  many  other  purposes. 

I  know  nothing  of  the  history  of  the  house,  except 
Thoreau's  telling  me  that  it  was  inhabited  a  genera- 


508  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

tion  or  two  ago  by  a  man  who  believed  he  should 
never  die.1  I  believe,  however,  he  is  dead ;  at  least,  I 
hope  so ;  else  he  may  probably  appear  and  dispute  my 
title  to  his  residence.  .  .  . 

I  asked  Tieknor  to  send  a  copy  of  "  The  Blithedale 
Eomance  "  to  you.  Do  not  read  it  as  if  it  had  any 
thing  to  do  with  Brook  Farm  (which  essentially  it  has 
not)>  but  merely  for  its  own  story  and  character. 

Truly  yours,  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

Quite  possibly  the  name  of  The  Wayside  recom 
mended  itself  to  him  by  some  association  of  thought 
like  that  which  comes  to  light  in  the  Preface  to  "  The 
Snow -Image,"  where,  speaking  of  the  years  imme 
diately  following  his  college  course,  he  says :  "  I  sat 
down  by  the  wayside  of  life  like  a  man  under  enchant 
ment,  and  a  shrubbery  sprung  up  around  me,  and  the 
bushes  grew  to  be  saplings,  and  the  saplings  became 
trees,  until  no  exit  appeared  possible  through  the  en 
tangling  depths  of  my  obscurity."  If  so,  the  simile 
held  good  as  to  his  home ;  for  there,  too,  the  shrub 
bery  has  sprung  up  and  has  grown  to  saplings  and 
trees,  until  the  house  is  embosomed  in  a  wood,  except 
for  the  opening  along  the  road  and  a  small  amphi 
theatre  of  lawn  overlooked  by  the  evergreen-clad  hill. 

Hawthorne's  old  college  friend,  Franklin  Pierce, 
after  having  been  to  Congress  and  having  risen  to  the 
rank  of  general  in  the  Mexican  War,  was  nominated 
by  the  democratic  party  for  the  presidency  of  the 
United  States,  at  the  time  when  the  romancer  had  es 
tablished  himself  in  this  humble  but  charming  old 

1  This  is  the  first  intimation  of  the  story  of  Septimius  Felton,  so 
far  as  local  setting  is  concerned.  The  scenery  of  that  romance  wa*1 
obviously  taken  from  The  Wayside  and  its  hilL 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  609 

abode ;  and  it  became  manifest  that  the  candidate 
wanted  Hawthorne  to  write  a  life  of  him,  for  use  in 
the  campaign.  Hawthorne,  on  being  pressed,  con 
sented  to  do  so,  and  a  letter  which  he  addressed  to 
Bridge,  October  13,  1852,  contains  some  extremely 
interesting  confidences  on  the  subject,  which  will  be 
entirely  new  to  readers.  As  they  do  Hawthorne  credit, 
if  considered  fairly,  and  give  a  striking  presentment 
of  the  impartiality  with  which  he  viewed  all  subjects, 
it  seems  to  be  proper  to  print  them  here. 

He  begins  by  speaking  of  "The  Blithedale  Ro 
mance,"  regarding  which  he  says :  "  I  doubt  whether 
you  will  like  it  very  well ;  but  it  has  met  with  good 
success,  and  has  brought  me  (besides  its  American 
circulation)  a  thousand  dollars  from  England,  whence 
likewise  have  come  many  favorable  notices.  Just  at 
this  time,  I  rather  think  your  friend  stands  foremost 
there  as  an  American  fiction-monger.  In  a  day  or 
two  I  intend  to  begin  a  new  romance,  which,  if  possi 
ble,  I  intend  to  make  more  genial  than  the  last. 

"  I  did  not  send  you  the  Life  of  Pierce,  not  consid 
ering  it  fairly  one  of  my  literary  productions.  ...  I 
was  terribly  reluctant  to  undertake  this  work,  and 
tried  to  persuade  Pierce,  both  by  letter  and  vivd  voce, 
that  I  could  not  perform  it  as  well  as  many  others ; 
but  he  thought  differently,  and  of  course  after  a  friend 
ship  of  thirty  years  it  was  impossible  to  refuse  my 
best  efforts  in  his  behalf,  at  the  great  pinch  of  his 
life.  It  was  a  bad  book  to  write,  for  the  gist  of  the 
matter  lay  in  explaining  how  it  happened,  that  with 
such  extraordinary  opportunities  for  eminent  distinc 
tion,  civil  and  military,  as  he  has  enjoyed,  this  crisis 
should  have  found  him  so  obscure  as  he  certainty 
was,  in  a  national  point  of  view.  My  heart  absolutely 


510  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

sank  at  the  dearth  of  available  material.  However,  I 
have  done  the  business,  greatly  to  Frank's  satisfac 
tion  ;  and,  though  I  say  it  myself,  it  is  judiciously 
done  ;  and,  without  any  sacrifice  of  truth,  it  puts  him 
in  as  good  a  light  as  circumstances  would  admit. 
Other  writers  might  have  made  larger  claims  for  him, 
and  have  eulogized  him  more  highly ;  but  I  doubt 
whether  any  other  could  have  bestowed  a  better  as 
pect  of  sincerity  and  reality  on  the  narrative,  and  have 
secured  all  the  credit  possible  for  him  without  spoiling 
all  by  asserting  too  much.  And  though  the  story  is 
true,  yet  it  took  a  romancer  to  do  it. 

"  Before  undertaking  it,  I  made  an  inward  resolu 
tion  that  I  would  accept  no  office  from  him  ;  but  to 
say  the  truth,  I  doubt  whether  it  would  not  be  rather 
folly  than  heroism  to  adhere  to  this  purpose,  in  case  he 
should  offer  me  anything  particularly  good.  We  shall 
see.  A  foreign  mission  I  could  not  afford  to  take; 
—  the  consulship  at  Liverpool  I  might.  ...  I  have 
several  invitations  from  English  celebrities  to  come 
over  there ;  and  this  office  would  make  all  straight. 
He  certainly  owes  me  something ;  for  the  biography 
has  cost  me  hundreds  of  friends  here  at  the  North,  who 
had  a  purer  regard  for  me  than  Frank  Pierce  or  any 
other  politician  ever  gained,  and  who  drop  off  from 
me  like  autumn  leaves,  in  consequence  of  what  I  say 
on  the  slavery  question.  But  they  were  my  real  sen 
timents,  and  I  do  not  now  regret  that  they  are  on 
record." 

After  discussing  other  topics,  he  observes  further  of 
Pierce  :  "  I  have  come  seriously  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  has  in  him  many  of  the  chief  elements  of  a 
great  man  ;  and  that  if  he  wins  the  election  he  may 
run  a  great  career.  His  talents  are  administrative; 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  511 

he  has  a  subtle  faculty  of  making  affairs  roll  around 
according  to  his  will,  and  of  influencing  their  course 
without  showing  any  trace  of  his  action."  Hawthorne 
did  not  feel  very  confident  of  his  friend's  election.  "  I 
love  him,"  he  adds,  "  and,  oddly  enough,  there  is  a 
kind  of  pitying  sentiment  mixed  with  my  affection  for 
him  just  now." 

Mr.  Richard  Henry  Stoddard  has  set  down  his  rem 
iniscences  of  two  visits  paid  to  Hawthorne  at  the  be 
ginning  and  after  the  end  of  the  campaign.  In  the 
summer  of  1852,  Mr.  Stoddard  was  making  a  short 
stay  in  Boston,  and  dropped  in  at  the  Old  Corner 
Bookstore  to  call  upon  Mr.  Fields,  who  then  had  his 
headquarters  there.  He  found  Mr.  Edwin  P.  Whipple, 
the  lecturer  and  critic,  sitting  with  the  publisher. 

"  i  We  are  going  to  see  Hawthorne,'  Mr.  Fields  re 
marked,  in  an  off-hand  way,  as  if  such  a  visit  was  the 
commonest  thing  in  the  world.  4  Won't  you  come 
along  ? '  He  knew  my  admiration  for  Hawthorne,  and 
that  I  desired  to  meet  him,  if  I  could  do  so  without 
being  considered  an  infliction.  4  To  be  sure  I  will,'  I 
replied.  .  .  .  When  we  were  fairly  seated  in  the  train 
we  met  a  friend  of  Hawthorne,  whom  Mr.  Fields  knew 
-  a  Colonel  T.  I.  Whipple  —  who,  like  ourselves, 
was  en  route  for  Concord,  .  .  .  and  as  General  Pierce 
was  then  the  democratic  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
he  was  going  to  see  Hawthorne,  in  order  to  furnish 
materials  for  that  work. 

"  We  reached  The  Wayside,  where  Hawthorne,  who 
had  no  doubt  been  expecting  visitors,  met  us  at  the 
door.  I  was  introduced  to  him  as  being  the  only 
stranger  of  the  party,  and  was  greeted  warmly,  more 
so  thaii  I  had  dared  to  hope,  remembering  the  stories 


512  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

I  had  heard  of  his  unconquerable  shyness.  He  threw 
open  the  door  of  the  room  on  the  left,  and,  telling  us 
to  make  ourselves  at  home,  disappeared  with  Colonel 
Whipple  and  his  budget  of  biographical  memoranda. 
We  made  ourselves  at  home,  as  he  had  desired,  in 
what  I  suppose  was  the  parlor  —  a  cosy  but  plainly 
furnished  room,  with  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from  a 
thousand  other  "  best  rooms  "  in  New  England,  ex 
cept  a  fine  engraving  on  the  wall  of  one  of  Raphael's 
Madonnas.  We  chatted  a  few  moments,  and  then,  as 
he  did  not  return,  we  took  a  stroll  over  the  grounds, 
under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Fields. 

"  We  had  ascended  the  hill,  and  from  its  outlook 
were  taking  in  the  historic  country  about,  when  we 
were  rejoined  by  Hawthorne  in  the  old  rustic  summer- 
house.  As  I  was  the  stranger,  he  talked  with  me 
more  than  with  the  others,  largely  about  myself  and 
my  verse-work,  which  he  seemed  to  have  followed  with 
considerable  attention  ;  and  he  mentioned  an  archi 
tectural  poem  of  mine  and  compared  it  with  his  own 
modest  mansion. 

"  '  If  I  could  build  like  you,'  he  said,  '  I,  too,  would 
have  a  castle  in  the  air.' 

" 4  Give  me  The  Wayside,'  I  replied, '  and  you  shall 
have  all  the  air  castles  I  can  build.' 

"  As  we  rambled  and  talked,  my  heart  went  out  to 
wards  this  famous  man,  who  did  not  look  down  upon 
me,  as  he  might  well  have  done,  but  took  me  up  to 
himself  as  an  equal  and  a  friend.  Dinner  was  an 
nounced  and  eaten,  a  plain  country  dinner,  with  a  bot 
tle  or  two  of  vin  ordinaire,  and  we  started  back  to 
Boston." 

Pierce  having  become  President-Elect,  Mr.  Stoddard 
made  another  trip  to  Concord,  in  the  winter  of  1852-3, 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  513 

to  ask  Hawthorne's  advice  about  getting  a  place  in  the 
Custom  House.  He  was  taken  into  the  study  (at  that 
time  in  the  southeast  corner,  on  the  ground-floor  and 
facing  the  road),  where  there  was  a  blazing  wood-fire. 
The  announcement  of  dinner  cut  short  their  conversa 
tion,  but  after  dinner  they  again  retired  to  the  study, 
where,  as  Mr.  Stoddard  says,  Hawthorne  brought  out 
some  cigars,  "  which  we  smoked  with  a  will  and  which 

O  > 

I  found  stronger  than  I  liked.  Custom  House  mat 
ters  were  scarcely  touched  upon,  and  I  was  not  sorry, 
for  while  they  were  my  ostensible  errand  there,  they 
were  not  half  so  interesting  as  the  discursive  talk  of 
Hawthorne.  He  manifested  a  good  deal  of  curiosity 
in  regard  to  some  old  Brook  Farmers  whom  I  knew  in 
a  literary  way,  and  I  told  him  what  they  were  doing, 
and  gave  him  my  impressions  of  the  individuality  of 
each.  He  listened,  with  an  occasional  twinkle  of  the 
eye,  and  I  can  see  now  that  he  was  amused  by  my  out 
spoken  detestation  of  certain  literary  Philistines.  He 
was  out-spoken,  too,  for  he  told  me  plainly  that  a  vol 
ume  of  fairy  stories  I  had  just  published  was  not  sim 
ple  enough  for  the  young. 

"  What  impressed  me  most  at  the  time  was  not  the 
drift  of  the  conversation,  but  the  graciousness  of  Haw 
thorne.  He  expressed  the  warmest  interest  in  my  af 
fairs,  and  a  willingness  to  serve  me  in  every  possible 
way.  In  a  word,  he  was  the  soul  of  kindness,  and 
when  I  forget  him  I  shall  have  forgotten  everything 
else." 

When  Mr.  Stoddard  got  back  to  New  York,  he  re 
ceived  this  letter :  — 

VOL.  xii.  33 


514  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

CONCORD,  March  16th,  1853. 

DEAR  STODDARD : 

I  beg  your  pardon  for  not  writing  before  ;  but  1 
have  been  very  busy  and  not  particularly  well.  I  en 
close  a  letter  to  Atherton.  Roll  up  and  pile  up  as 
much  of  a  snow-ball  as  you  can  in  the  way  of  political 
interest ;  for  there  never  was  a  fiercer  time  than  this 
among  the  office-seekers.  .  .  . 

Atherton  is  a  man  of  rather  cold  exterior ;  but  has 
a  good  heart  —  at  least  for  a  politician  of  a  quarter  of 
a  century's  standing.  If  it  be  certain  that  he  cannot 
help  you,  he  will  probably  tell  you  so.  Perhaps  it 
would  be  as  well  for  you  to  apply  for  some  place  that 
has  a  literary  fragrance  about  it  —  librarian  to  some 
department — the  office  that  Lanman  held.  I  don't 
know  whether  there  is  any  other  such  office.  Are  you 
fond  of  brandy?  Your  strength  of  head  (which you  tell 
me  you  possess)  may  stand  you  in  good  stead  in  Wash 
ington  ;  for  most  of  these  public  men  are  inveterate 
guzzlers,  and  love  a  man  that  can  stand  up  to  them  in 
that  particular.  It  would  never  do  to  let  them  see 
you  corned,  however.  But  I  must  leave  you  to  find 
your  way  among  them.  If  you  have  never  associated 
with  them  heretofore,  you  will  find  them  a  new  class, 
and  very  unlike  poets. 

I  have  finished  the  "  Tanglewood  Tales,"  and  they 
will  make  a  volume  about  the  size  of  the  "  Wonder- 
Book,"  consisting  of  six  myths  —  "The  Minotaur," 
"  The  Golden  Fleece,"  "  The  Story  of  Proserpine," 
etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  done  up  in  excellent  style,  purified  from 
all  moral  stain,  re-created  good  as  new,  or  better  — 
and  fully  equal,  in  their  way,  to  "  Mother  Goose."  I 
never  did  anything  so  good  as  those  old  baby-stories. 

In  haste,  Truly  yours, 

NATH.  HAWTHORNE. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  515 

Nothing  could  more  succinctly  illustrate  the  readi 
ness  of  Hawthorne's  sympathies,  and  the  companion 
able,  cordial  ease  with  which  he  treated  a  new  friend 
who  approached  him  in  the  right  way,  one  who  caught 
his  fancy  by  a  frank  and  simple  independence,  than 
this  letter  to  Mr.  Stoddard,  whom  he  had  spoken  with 
only  twice.  At  that  very  time  his  old  disinclination 
to  be  intruded  upon  was  as  strong  as  ever ;  for  Mr. 
Fields  relates  how,  just  before  Hawthorne  sailed  for 
England,  they  walked  together  near  the  Old  Manse 
and  lay  down  in  a  secluded,  grassy  spot  beside  the 
Concord  River,  to  watch  the  clouds  and  hear  the  birds 
sing.  Suddenly,  footsteps  were  heard  approaching, 
and  Hawthorne  whispered  in  haste,  with  much  solem 
nity  :  "  Duck !  or  we  shall  be  interrupted  by  some 
body."  So  they  were  both  obliged  to  prostrate  them 
selves  in  the  grass  until  the  saunterer  had  passed  out 
of  sight. 

The  proposition  to  accept  an  office  from  Pierce  was 
made  to  him  as  soon  as  the  new  President  was  inaugu 
rated.  Although  Hawthorne  had  considered  the  pos 
sibility,  as  we  have  seen,  and  had  decided  what  he 
could  advantageously  take  if  it  were  offered,  he  also 
had  grave  doubts  with  regard  to  taking  any  post  what 
ever.  When,  therefore,  the  Liverpool  consulate  was 
tendered  to  him,  he  at  first  positively  declined  it. 
President  Pierce,  however,  was  much  troubled  by  his 
refusal,  and  the  intervention  of  Hawthorne's  publisher, 
Mr.  Ticknor,  was  sought.  Mr.  Ticknor  urged  him  to 
reconsider,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  a  duty  to  his 
family ;  and  Hawthorne,  who  also  naturally  felt  a 
strong  desire  to  see  England,  finally  consented.  His 
appointment  was  confirmed,  March  26,  1853 ;  but  his 
predecessor  was  allowed,  by  resigning  prospectively,  to 


516  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

hold  over  for  five  months  ;  so  that  the  departure  for 
England  was  not  effected  until  the  midsummer  of 
1853. 


IV. 

The  twofold  character  of  Hawthorne's  mind  is 
strongly  manifested  in  the  diverse  nature  of  the  in 
terests  which  occupied  him  in  Europe,  and  the  tone 
with  which  he  discussed  them,  alike  in  his  journals,  in 
his  letters,  in  "  Our  Old  Home,"  and  "  The  Marble 
Faun."  On  the  one  side,  we  find  the  business-like 
official,  attending  methodically  to  the  duties  of  his 
place,  the  careful  father  of  a  family  looking  out  for 
his  personal  interests  and  the  material  welfare  of  his 
children  in  the  future,  the  keen  and  cool-headed  ob 
server  who  is  determined  to  contemplate  all  the  novel 
ties  of  strange  scenes  through  no  one's  eyes  but  his 
own.  On  the  other  side,  he  presents  himself  to  us  as 
the  man  of  reverie,  whose  observation  of  the  actual 
constantly  stimulates  and  brings  into  play  a  faculty 
that  perceives  more  than  the  actual ;  the  delicate  ar 
tist,  whose  sympathies  are  ready  and  true  in  the  ap 
preciation  of  whatever  is  picturesque  or  suggestive,  or 
beautiful,  whether  in  nature  or  in  art. 

Some  of  the  letters  which  he  wrote  from  Liverpool 
to  his  classmate,  Horatio  Bridge,  throw  light  upon  his 
own  affairs  and  the  deliberate  way  in  which  he  consid 
ered  them.  For  instance,  under  date  of  March  30, 
1854,  he  wrote :  — 

"  I  like  my  office  well  enough,  but  my  official  du 
ties  and  obligations  are  irksome  to  me  beyond  expres 
sion.  Nevertheless,  the  emoluments  will  be  a  sufficient 
inducement  to  keep  me  here  for  four  years,  though 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  517 

they  are  not  a  quarter  part  what  people  suppose  them. 
The  value  of  the  office  varied  between  ten  and  fifteen 
thousand  dollars  during  my  predecessor's  term,  and  it 
promises  about  the  same  now.  Secretary  Guthrie, 
however,  has  just  cut  off  a  large  slice,  by  a  circular. 

.  .  .  Ask to  show  you  a  letter  of  mine,  which  I 

send  by  this  steamer,  for  possible  publication  in  the 
newspapers.  It  contains  a  statement  of  my  doings  in 
reference  to  the  San  Francisco  [steamship]  sufferers. 
The  "  Portsmouth  Journal,"  it  appears,  published  an 
attack  on  me,  accusing  rue  of  refusing  all  assistance 
until  compelled  to  act  by  Mr.  Buchanan's  orders ; 
whereas  I  acted  extra-officially  on  my  own  responsibil 
ity,  throughout  the  whole  affair.  Buchanan  refused 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  Alas  !  How  we  pub 
lic  men  are  calumniated.  But  I  trust  there  will  be 
no  necessity  for  publishing  my  letter;  for  I  desire 
onlv  to  glide  noiselessly  through  my  present  phase  of 
life*. 

"  It  sickens  me  to  look  back  to  America.  I  am  sick 
to  death  of  the  continual  fuss  and  tumult,  and  excite 
ment  and  bad  blood,  which  we  keep  up  about  political 
topics.  If  it  were  not  for  my  children,  I  should  prob 
ably  never  return,  but,  after  quitting  office,  should 
go  to  Italy,  to  live  and  die  there.  If  you  and  Mrs. 
Bridge  would  go,  too,  we  might  form  a  little  colony 
amongst  ourselves,  and  see  our  children  grow  up  to 
gether.  But  it  will  never  do  to  deprive  them  of  their 
native  land,  which,  I  hope,  will  be  a  more  comfortable 
and  happy  residence  in  their  day  than  it  has  been  in 
ours.  In  my  opinion  we  are  the  most  miserable  peo 
ple  on  earth."  It  appears,  further,  that  the  appoint 
ment  of  a  consul  for  Manchester  was  contemplated, 
which,  Hawthorne  says,  by  withdrawing  some  of  the 


518  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

Liverpool  perquisites,  "  would  go  far  towards  knock 
ing  this  consulate  in  the  head." 

On  April  17th,  hearing  that  a  bill  had  been  in 
troduced  in  Congress  to  put  consuls  upon  salary,  in 
stead  of  granting  them  fees,  he  wrote  :  — 

"  I  trust  to  Heaven  no  change  whatever  will  be  made 
in  regard  to  the  emoluments  of  the  Liverpool  consu 
late,  unless  indeed  a  salary  is  to  be  given  in  addition 
to  the  fees,  in  which  case  I  should  receive  it  very  thank 
fully.  This,  however,  is  not  to  be  expected.  ...  A 
fixed  salary  (even  if  it  should  be  larger  than  any  sal 
ary  now  paid  by  government,  with  the  exception  of  the 
President's  own)  will  render  the  office  not  worth  any 
man's  holding.  It  is  impossible  (especially  for  a  man 
with  a  family  and  keeping  any  kind  of  an  establish 
ment)  not  to  spend  a  vast  deal  of  money  here.  The 
office,  unfortunately,  is  regarded  as  one  of  great  dig 
nity,  and  puts  the  holder  on  a  level  with  the  highest 
society,  and  compels  him  to  associate  on  equal  terms 
with  men  who  spend  more  than  my  whole  income  on 
the  mere  entertainments  and  other  trimmings  and  em 
broideries  of  their  lives.  Then  I  am  bound  to  exer 
cise  some  hospitality  toward  my  own  countrymen.  I 
keep  out  of  society  as  much  as  I  decently  can,  and 
really  practise  as  stern  an  economy  as  ever  I  did  in 
my  life  ;  but  nevertheless  I  have  spent  many  thousands 
of  dollars  in  the  few  months  of  my  residence  here, 
and  cannot  reasonably  hope  to  spend  less  than  $ 6,000 
per  annum,  even  after  the  expense  of  setting  up  an  es 
tablishment  is  defrayed.  All  this  is  for  the  merely 
indispensable,  part  of  my  living ;  and  unless  I  make  a 
hermit  of  myself  and  deprive  my  wife  and  children  of 
all  the  pleasures  and  advantages  of  an  English  resi« 
dence,  I  must  inevitably  exceed  the  sum  named  above, 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  519 

...  It  would  be  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  for 
me  to  run  in  debt,  even  taking  my  income  at  §15,- 
000  "  (out  of  which  all  the  clerks  and  certain  other 
office  expenses  had  to  be  paid),  ..."  the  largest  sum 
that  it  ever  reached  in  Crittenden's  time.  He  had  no 
family  but  a  wife,  and  lived  constantly  at  a  boarding- 
house,  and,  nevertheless,  went  away  (as  he  assured  me) 
with  an  aggregate  of  only  $25,000  derived  from  his 
savings. 

"  Now  the  American  public  can  never  be  made  to 
understand  such  a  statement  as  the  above ;  and  they 
would  grumble  awfully  if  more  than  $6,000  per  annum 
were  allowed  for  a  consul's  salary."  But  Hawthorne 
concludes  that  it  would  not  compensate  him  to  retain 
the  place  with  a  salary  even  of  $10,000  ;  and  that  if  the 
emoluments  should  be  reduced  from  their  then  propor 
tions,  "  the  incumbent  must  be  compelled  to  turn  his 
official  position  to  account  by  engaging  in  commerce 
—  a  course  which  ought  not  to  be  permitted,  and  which 
no  Liverpool  consul  has  ever  adopted." 

There  are  some  references  to  President  Pierce,  in 
the  Bridge  correspondence,  which  possess  exceptional 
interest ;  but  I  cite  only  one  of  them.  The  great  honor 
of  the  immense  publicity  into  which  Pierce  had  come 
as  the  executive  head  of  the  nation,  and  the  centre 
upon  which  many  conflicting  movements  and  machi 
nations  turned,  created  a  danger  of  misunderstandings 
with  some  of  his  early  and  intimate  friends.  In  dis 
cussing  one  such  case  Hawthorne  writes  (May  1, 1854), 
with  regard  to  maintaining  a  friendship  for  the  Presi 
dent  :  — • 

"  You  will  say  that  it  is  easy  for  me  to  feel  thus 
towards  him,  since  he  has  done  his  very  best  on  my 
behalf  ;  but  the  truth  is  (alas  for  poor  human  nature !) 


520  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

I  should  probably  have  loved  him  better  if  I  had  never 
received  any  favor  at  his  hands.  But  all  this  will 
come  right  again,  after  both  he  and  I  shall  have  re 
turned  into  private  life.  It  is  some  satisfaction,  at 
any  rate,  that  no  one  of  his  appointments  was  so  fa 
vorably  criticized  as  my  own ;  and  he  should  have  my 
resignation  by  the  very  next  mail,  if  it  would  really 
do  him  any  good." 

Mr.  Pike,  who  still  held  a  post  in  the  Salem  Custom 
House,  had  written  to  Hawthorne  not  long  .after  his 
arrival  in  England,  inquiring  about  the  prospect  of  ob 
taining  some  employment  in  the  consular  service  there ; 
and  Hawthorne  replied,  in  a  manner  that  leaves  no 
doubt  of  his  sagacity  in  perceiving  the  exact  situation 
of  affairs,  with  its  bearings  for  both  Pike  and  himself, 
nor  of  his  determination  neither  to  deceive  himself 
nor  to  give  his  friend  any  but  the  real  reasons  why  he 
discouraged  the  inquiry. 

"LIVERPOOL,  September  15,  1853. 

DEAR  PIKE,  —  I  have  been  intending  to  write  to 
you  this  some  time,  but  wished  to  get  some  tolerably 
clear  idea  of  the  state  of  things  here  before  communi 
cating  with  you.  I  find  that  I  have  three  persons 
in  my  office :  the  head-clerk,  or  vice-consul,  at  £200, 
the  second  clerk  at  X150,  and  the  messenger,  who  does 
some  writing,  at  £80.  They  are  all  honest  and  capable 
men,  and  do  their  duty  to  perfection.  No  American 
would  take  either  of  these  places  for  twice  the  sums 
which  they  receive  ;  and  no  American,  without  some 
months'  practice,  would  undertake  the  duty.  Of  the 
two  I  would  rather  displace  the  vice-consul  than  the 
second  clerk,  who  does  a  great  amount  of  labor,  and 
has  a  remarkable  variety  of  talent,  —  whereas  the  old 
gentleman,  though  perfect  in  his  own  track,  is  nothing 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  521 

outside  of  it.  I  will  not  part  with  either  of  these  men 
unless  compelled  to  do  so  ;  and  I  don't  think  Secre 
tary  Marcy  c^n  compel  me. 

Now  as  to  the  Manchester  branch,  it  brings  me  in 
only  about  £200.  There  is  a  consular  agent  there, 
all  the  business  being  transacted  here  in  Liverpool. 
The  only  reason  for  appointing  an  agent  would  be 
that  it  might  shut  off  all  attempts  to  get  a  separate 
consulate  there.  There  is  no  danger,  I  presume,  of 
such  an  attempt  for  some  time  to  come ;  for  Pierce 
made  a  direct  promise  that  the  place  should  be  kept 
open  for  my  benefit.  Nevertheless  efforts  will  be  made 
to  fill  it,  and  very  possibly  representations  may  be 
made  from  the  business  men  of  Manchester  that  there 
is  necessity  for  a  consul  there.  In  a  pecuniary  point 
of  view,  it  would  make  very  little  difference  to  me 
whether  the  place  were  filled  by  an  independent  con 
sul  or  by  a  vice-consul  of  my  own  appointment,-  for  the 
latter  would  of  course  not  be  satisfied  with  less  than 
the  whole  £200.  What  I  should  like  would  be  to 
keep  the  place  vacant  and  receive  the  proceeds  as  long 
as  possible,  and  at  last,  when  I  could  do  no  better,  to 
give  the  office  to  you.  No  great  generosity  in  that  to 
be  sure.  Thus  I  have  put  the  matter  fairly  before 
you.  Do  you  tell  me  as  frankly  how  your  own  affairs 
stand,  and  whether  you  can  live  any  longer  in  that 
cursed  old  Custom  House  without  hanging  yourself. 
Rather  than  that  you  should  do  so  I  would  let  you  have 
the  place  to-morrow,  although  it  would  pay  you  about 
,£100  less  than  your  present  office.  I  suppose  as  a 
single  man  you  might  live  within  your  income  in  Man 
chester  ;  but  judging  from  my  own  experience  as  a 
married  man,  it  would  be  a  very  tight  fit.  With  all 
the  economy  I  could  use  I  have  already  got  rid  of  $2,000 


522  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

since  landing  in  England.     Hereafter  I  hope  to  spend 
less  and  save  more. 

In  point  of  emolument,  my  office  will  furn  out  about 
what  I  expected.  If  I  have  ordinary  luck  I  shall  bag 
from  15,000  to  17,000  clear  per  annum :  but  to  effect 
this  I  shall  have  to  deny  myself  many  things  which  I 
would  gladly  have.  Colonel  Crittenden  told  me  that 
it  cost  him  $4,000  to  live  with  only  his  wife  at  a  board 
ing-house,  including  a  journey  to  London  now  and 
then.  I  am  determined  not  to  spend  more  than  this, 
keeping  house  with  my  wife  and  children.  I  have 
hired  a  good  house  furnished  at  <£160,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  River  Mersey,  at  Rock  Park,  where  there 
is  good  air  and  play-ground  for  thg  children  ;  and  I  can 
come  over  to  the  city  by  steamboat  every  morning.  I 
like  the  situation  all  the  better  because  it  will  render 
it  impossible  for  me  to  go  to  parties,  or  to  give  parties 
myself,  and  will  keep  me  out  of  a  good  deal  of  non 
sense. 

Liverpool  is  the  most  detestable  place  as  a  residence 
that  ever  my  lot  was  cast  in,  —  smoky,  noisy,  dirty, 
pestilential ;  and  the  consulate  is  situated  in  the  most 
detestable  part  of  the  city.  The  streets  swarm  with 
beggars  by  day  and  by  night.  You  never  saw  the  like ; 
and  I  pray  that  you  may  never  see  it  in  America.  It 
is  worth  while  coming  across  the  sea  in  order  to  feel 
one's  heart  warm  towards  his  own  country  ;  and  I  feel 
it  all  the  more  because  it  is  plain  to  be  seen  that  a 
great  many  of  the  Englishmen  whom  I  meet  here  dis 
like  us,  whatever  they  may  pretend  to  the  contrary. 

My  family  and  myself  have  suffered  very  much  from 
the  elements ;  there  has  not  been,  what  we  should  cal] 
a  fair  day  since  our  arrival,  nor  a  single  day  when  a 
fire  would  not  be  agreeable.  I  long  for  one  of  oui 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  523 

sunny  days,  and  one  of  our  good  hearty  rains.  It  al 
ways  threatens  to  rain,  but  seldom  rains  in  good  ear 
nest.  It  never  does  rain,  and  it  never  don't  rain ;  but 
you  are  pretty  sure  to  get  a  sprinkling  if  you  go  out 
without  an  umbrella.  Except  by  the  fireside,  I  have 
not  once  been  as  warm  as  I  should  like  to  be  :  but  the 
Englishmen  call  it  a  sultry  day  whenever  the  ther 
mometer  rises  above  60°.  There  has  not  been  heat 
enough  in  England  this  season  to  ripen  an  apple. 

My  wife  and  children  often  talk  of  you.  Even  the 
baby  has  not  forgotten  you.  Write  often,  and  say  as 
much  as  you  can  about  yourself,  and  as  little  as  you 

please  about  A ,  N ,  and  B ,  and  all  the 

rest  of  those  wretches  of  whom  my  soul  was  weary  to 
death  before  I  made  my  escape. 

Your  friend  ever, 

NATH.  HAWTHORNE. 

Writing  to  Bridge  again,  November  28,  1854,  he 
continues,  with  regard  to  his  consular  prospects,  by  a 
comparison  between  the  pay  received  by  English  con 
suls  and  that  allowed  by  the  new  bill  to  Americans. 
Only  $ 7,500  were  to  be  paid  the  consul  at  Liverpool. 
"  Now  I  employ  three  clerks  constantly,"  says  Haw 
thorne  "  and  sometimes  more.  The  bill  provides  that 
these  clerks  should  be  Americans ;  and  the  whole  sum 
allowed  would  not  do  much  more  than  pay  competent 
Americans,  whose  salaries  must  be  much  higher  than 
would  content  Englishmen  of  equal  qualifications. 
No  consul  can  keep  the  office  at  this  rate,  without  en 
gaging  in  business  —  which  the  bill  forbids."  He 
adds  that  the  notion  that,  by  the  proposed  measure,  a 
fund  'would  be  gained  from  the  larger  consulates 
towards  paying  the  salaries  of  the  smaller  ones,  was 


524  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

mistaken,  since  "  a  large  part  of  the  income  of  this 
consulate  arises  from  business  which  might  just  as 
well  be  transacted  by  a  notary  public  as  by  a  consul, 
and  which  a  consul  is  therefore  not  officially  bound  to 
do.  All  such  business  as  this  the  consul  will  cease  to 
transact,  the  moment  the  avails  of  it  go  into  the  pub 
lic  treasury,  instead  of  his  own  purse  ;  and  thus  there 
will  be  an  immediate  falling  off  of  the  office  to  a  very 
considerable  extent." 

Later  on,  he  says :  "  I  should  really  be  ashamed 
to  tell  you  how  much  my  income  is  taxed  by  the  as 
sistance  which  I  find  it  absolutely  necessary  to  render 
to  American  citizens,  who  come  to  me  in  difficulty  or 
distress.  Every  day  there  is  some  new  claimant,  for 
whom  the  government  makes  no  provision,  and  whom 
the  consul  must  assist,  if  at  all,  out  of  his  own  pocket. 
It  is  impossible  (or  at  any  rate  very  disagreeable)  to 
leave  a  countryman  to  starve  in  the  streets,  or  to  hand 
him  over  to  the  charities  of  an  English  work-house  ; 
so  I  do  my  best  for  these  poor  devils.  But  I  doubt 
whether  they  will  meet  with  quite  so  good  treatment 
after  the  passage  of  the  consular  bill.  If  the  govern 
ment  chooses  to  starve  the  consul,  a  good  many  will 
starve  with  him." 

The  bill,  nevertheless,  was  passed.  Lieutenant 
Bridge,  who  was  then  stationed  at  Washington,  had 
done  all  that  he  could  to  rouse  an  effectual  opposition 
to  its  enactment ;  and  his  friend  wrote  to  him  from 
Liverpool  (March  23,  1855)  thus  :  - 

"  I  thank  you  for  your  efforts  against  this  bill ;  but 
Providence  is  wiser  than  we  are,  and  doubtless  it  will 
all  turn  out  for  the  best.  All  through  my  life,  I  have 
had  occasion  to  observe  that  what  seemed  to  be  mis 
fortunes  have  proved,  in  the  end,  to  be  the  best  things 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  525 

that  could  possibly  have  happened  to  me ;  and  so  it 
will  be  with  this  —  even  though  the  mode  in  which  it 
benefits  me  may  never  be  made  clear  to  my  apprehen 
sion.  It  would  seem  to  be  a  desirable  thing  enough 
that  I  should  have  had  a  sufficient  income  to  live 
comfortably  upon  for  the  rest  of  my  life,  without  the 
necessity  of  labor  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  might 
have  sunk  prematurely  into  intellectual  sluggishness  — 
which  now  there  will  be  no  danger  of  my  doing; 
though  with  a  house  and  land  of  my  own,  and  a  good 
little  sum  at  interest  besides,  I  need  not  be  under  any 
very  great  anxiety  about  the  future.  When  I  contrast 
my  present  situation  with  what  it  was  five  years  ago,  I 
see  a  vast  deal  to  be  thankful  for  ;  and  I  still  hope  to 
thrive  by  my  legitimate  instrument  —  the  pen.  One 
consideration  which  goes  very  far  towards  reconciling 
me  to  quitting  the  office  is  my  wife's  health,  with 
which  the  climate  of  England  does  not  agree.  ...  In 
short,  we  have  wholly  ceased  to  regret  the  action  of 
Congress  (which,  nevertheless,  was  most  unjust  and 
absurd),  and  are  looking  at  matters  on  the  bright  side. 
However,  I  shall  be  glad  to  get  what  advantage  I  can 
out  of  the  office,  and  therefore  I  hope  Pierce  will  give 
me  as  long  a  line  as  his  conscience  will  let  him." 

Believing  that  the  office  of  consul  with  a  salary  re 
duced  to  17,500,  which  was  only  half  the  sum  it  had 
previously  yielded  in  good  years,  would  not  be  worth 
the  sacrifice  involved  in  giving  himself  up  to  its 
duties,  he  purposed  resigning  within  a  few  months, 
taking  a  trip  to  Italy,  and  then  going  home.  But,  for 
tunately  for  his  pecuniary  welfare,  the  act  of  Congress 
had  been  so  loosely  framed  (in  harmony  with  the  gen 
eral  ignorance  on  which  it  was  based),  that  it  was  left 
to  the  President  to  reappoint  old  incumbents  undei 


626  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

the  new  system  or  not,  as  he  pleased.  Pierce  accord- 
ingly  let  Hawthorne's  commission  run  on  without  in 
terruption,  and  the  consul  stayed  through  the  rest  of 
the  administration's  term. 

While  the  matter  was  still  in  abeyance,  however, 
the  suggestion  came  from  Bridge  that  he  allow  himself 
to  be  transferred  to  Lisbon  as  minister.  The  prospect 
was,  in  one  way,  seductive.  Hawthorne  was  growing 
anxious  about  his  wife's  health,  and  felt  that  nothing 
could  be  more  delightful  than  to  take  her  to  a  warmer 
climate,  which  she  needed,  and  thus  avoid  the  tempo 
rary  separation  which  might  have  to  be  undergone  if 
he  remained  at  Liverpool.  The  objections  were,  that 
he  had  no  acquaintance  with  diplomacy,  did  not  know 
Portuguese,  and  disliked  forms  and  ceremonies.  "  You 
will  observe,"  he  wrote,  "  that  the  higher  rank  and 
position  of  a  minister,  as  compared  with  a  consul,  have 
no  weight  with  me.  This  is  not  the  kind  of  honor  of 
which  I  am  ambitious."  With  a  good  deal  of  hesita 
tion  he  came  to  the  belief  that  it  would  be  wise  for 
him  not  to  make  the  change.  "  But,"  he  remarked,  "it 
was  a  most  kind  and  generous  thing  on  the  part  of  the 
President  to  entertain  the  idea."  His  friend,  Mr.  John 
O'Sullivan,  who  had  been  the  founder  and  editor  of  the 
"  Democratic  Review,"  to  which  Hawthorne  had  con 
tributed  copiously  during  his  residence  at  the  Manse, 
was  at  this  time  accredited  to  the  Court  of  Lisbon, 
and  would  doubtless  have  been  provided  for  in  some 
other  way  had  Hawthorne  been  promoted  to  the  place. 
The  latter  decided  to  stay  at  Liverpool,  but  to  send 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  to  Lisbon,  where  she  would  find  not 
only  milder  air,  but  also  friends  in  the  minister  and 
his  wife.  She  sailed  with  her  daughters  in  October, 
1855,  and  returned  in  the  following  June. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  527 

Wearisome  as  the  details  of  his  office  duty  were  to 
him,  Hawthorne  gave  them  more  than  a  perfunctory 
attention.  He  became  greatly  aroused  by  the  wrongs 
and  cruelties  endured  by  sailors  on  the  high  seas,  and 
sent  a  long  despatch  on  that  subject  to  the  Secretary 
of  State,  suggesting  action  for  their  relief.  He  even 
investigated  such  minutiae  as  the  candles  used  in  the 
British  navy,  and  sent  samples  of  them  to  Bridge, 
thinking  that  it  might  be  desirable  to  compare  them 
with  those  in  use  on  American  war-ships.  Opportu 
nities,  however,  had  occurred  for  several  trips  in  va 
rious  directions,  to  Wales,  Furness  Abbey,  and  the 
Lakes.  London  was  visited  just  before  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne  sailed ;  and  during  her  absence  he  again  went  to 
the  capital,  and  made  a  tour  which  included  Glasgow, 
Edinburgh,  York,  Newcastle,  and  Salisbury.  A  few 
days  before  her  expected  return,  he  said  in  a  letter  to 
Bridge  that  unless  she  should  prove  to  be  perfectly 
free  from  the  cough  which  had  troubled  her,  "  I  shall 
make  arrangements  to  give  up  the  consulate  in  the 
latter  part  of  autumn,  and  we  will  be  off  for  Italy.  I 
wish  I  were  a  little  richer ;  but  when  I  compare  my 
situation  with  what  it  was  before  I  wrote  c  The  Scar 
let  Letter,'  I  have  reason  to  be  satisfied  with  my  run 
of  luck.  And,  to  say  the  truth,  I  had  rather  not  be 
too  prosperous :  it  may  be  a  superstition,  but  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  bitter  is  very  apt  to  come  with  the 
sweet,  and  bright  sunshine  casts  a  dark  shadow  ;  so  I 
content  myself  with  a  moderate  portion  of  sugar,  and 
about  as  much  sunshine  as  that  of  an  English  sum. 
mer's  day.  In  this  view  of  the  matter,  I  am  disposed 
to  thank  God  for  the  gloom  and  chill  of  my  early 
life,  in  the  hope  that  my  share  of  adversity  came  then, 
when  I  bore  it  alone ;  and  that  therefore  it  need  not 


52&  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

come  now,  when  the  cloud  would  involve  those  whom 
I  love. 

"  I  make  my  plans  to  return  to  America  in  about 
two  years  from  this  time.  For  my  own  part,  I  should 
be  willing  to  stay  abroad  much  longer,  and  perhaps 
even  to  settle  in  Italy ;  but  the  children  must  not  be 
kept  away  so  long  as  to  lose  their  American  charac 
teristics;  otherwise  they  will  be  exiles  and  outcasts 
through  life." 

The  presidential  convention  of  the  democratic  party 
was  held  early  in  the  summer  of  1856,  and  Buchanan, 
then  minister  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  became  the 
candidate.  Pierce  had  also  been  in  the  field,  but  was 
defeated,  and  concerning  this  circumstance  Hawthorne 
wrote,  characteristically  :  "  I  am  sorry  Frank  has  not 
the  nomination,  if  he  wished  it.  Otherwise,  I  am  glad 
he  is  out  of  the  scrape." 

During  the  earlier  part  of  his  consulship,  Haw 
thorne  leased  a  pleasant  dwelling  at  Kock  Ferry,  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  Mersey  from  Liverpool,  where 
he  was  able  to  live  without  going  much  into  society  ; 
and  while  Mrs.  Hawthorne  was  in  Portugal,  he  occu 
pied  simple  quarters  at  a  boarding-house.  Afterwards 
he  settled  at  Southport  for  a  number  of  months,  in  a 
furnished  house.  He  formed  but  one  intimate  friend 
ship,  that  which  attached  him  to  Mr.  Henry  Bright,  a 
gentleman  engaged  in  business,  but  gifted  with  a  quick 
and  sympathetic  mind  and  a  taste  for  literature.  In 
London  his  chief  friend  was  Mr.  Francis  Beimoch, 
also  a  merchant,  who  consorted  much  with  people  of 
creative  genius,  and  delighted  to  gather  them  at  his 
table,  where  they  were  entertained  with  a  cordial  and 
charming  hospitality.  Mr.  Bright  and  Mr.  Bennoch 
have  each  published  a  book  since  then ;  but  although 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  529 

Hawthorne  met  many  persons  eminent  in  literature, 
and  enjoyed  meeting  them,  it  was  not  with  any  of  their 
number  that  he  formed  the  closest  ties. 

With  relief  he  heard  in  April,  1857,  that  his  resig 
nation  had  been  accepted.  "  Dear  Bridge,"  he  wrote, 
"  I  have  received  your  letter,  and  the  not  unwelcome 
intelligence  that  there  is  another  Liverpool  consul  now 
in  existence.  ...  I  am  going  to  Paris  in  a  day  or  two, 
with  my  wife  and  children,  and  shall  leave  them  there 
while  I  return  here  to  await  my  successor."  He  then 
thanked  Bridge  for  a  newspaper  paragraph  which  the 
latter  had  caused  to  be  printed,  explaining  Hawthorne's 
position  in  resigning.  "  I  was  somewhat  apprehensive 
that  my  resignation  would  have  been  misunderstood," 
he  proceeded,  "  in  consequence  of  a  letter  of  General 
Cass  to  Lord  Napier,  in  which  he  intimated  that  any 
consul  found  delinquent  in  certain  matters  should  be 
compelled  to  retire.  .  .  .  But  for  your  paragraph,  I 
should  have  thought  it  necessary  to  enlighten  the  pub 
lic  on  the  true  state  of  the  case  as  regards  the  treat 
ment  of  seamen  on  our  merchant  vessels,  and  I  do  not 
know  but  I  may  do  it  yet ;  in  which  case  I  shall  prove 
that  General  Cass  made  a  most  deplorable  mistake  in 
the  above-mentioned  letter  to  Lord  Napier.  I  shall 
send  the  despatch  to  Ticknor,  at  any  rate,  for  publica 
tion  if  necessary.  I  expect  great  pleasure  during  my 
stay  on  the  Continent,  and  shall  come  home  at  last 
somewhat  reluctantly.  Your  pledge  on  my  behalf  of 
a  book  shall  he  honored  in  good  time,  if  God  pleases." 

The  intention  of  taking  his  family  at  once  to  Paris 
was  given  up,  and  instead  Hawthorne  went  with  them 
to  Manchester,  the  Lakes,  and  Scotland,  and  made  a 
pilgrimage  to  Warwick  and  Coventry,  besides  visiting 
many  other  places.  The  new  consul,  however,  post- 

VOL.  xn.  34 


530  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

poned  his  coming  until  near  the  end  of  1857.  Not 
before  January,  1858,  did  Hawthorne  break  away  from 
the  fascinations  of  England  and  cross  to  the  Continent. 
When,  after  spending  more  than  a  year  and  a  half  in 
Italy,  he  again  set  foot  in  England,  it  was  to  establish 
himself  at  Redcar,  a  sea-side  town  in  Yorkshire,  where 
he  finished  "  The  Marble  Faun  "  in  October,  1859 ; 
and  thence  he  betook  himself  to  Leamington,  which 
had  greatly  pleased  him  on  a  previous  visit.  Here  his 
old  friend,  Mr.  Hillard,  called  upon  him ;  and  in  an 
article  printed  in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly,"  in  1870,  he 
says  :  "  The  writer  of  this  notice,  who  confesses  to  an 
insatiable  passion  for  the  possession  of  books,  and  an 
omnivorous  appetite  for  their  contents,  was  invited  by 
him  into  his  study,  the  invitation  being  accompanied 
with  one  of  his  peculiar  and  indescribable  smiles,  in 
which  there  lurked  a  consciousness  of  his  (the  writer's) 
weakness.  The  study  was  a  small  square  room,  with  a 
table  and  chair,  but  absolutely  not  a  single  book.  He 
liked  writing  better  than  reading."  Mr.  Hillard's 
implication,  however,  is  a  misleading  one.  "Haw 
thorne,"  says  Mr.  Fields,  "  was  a  hearty  devourer  of 
books,  and  in  certain  moods  of  mind  it  made  very  little 
difference  what  the  volume  before  him  happened  to 
be.  ...  He  once  told  me  that  he  found  such  delight 
in  old  advertisements  in  the  newspaper  files  at  the 
Boston  Athenaeum,  that  he  had  passed  delicious  hours 
among  them.  At  other  times  he  was  very  fastidious, 
and  threw  aside  book  after  book,  until  he  found  the 
right  one.  De  Quincey  was  a  favorite  with  him,  and 
the  sermons  of  Laurence  Sterne  he  once  commended 
to  me  as  the  best  sermons  ever  written."  His  corre 
spondence  was  not  "  literary,"  to  be  sure  ;  but  in  his 
letters  to  Mr.  Fields,  who  had  to  do  so  especially  witli 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  531 

books,  occasional  references  to  literature  escape  him, 
which  did  not  ordinarily  find  their  way  into  his  letters 
to  other  people.  From  England,  in  1854,  he  wrote  to 
that  gentleman  :  "  I  thank  you  for  the  books  you  sent 
me,  and  more  especially  for  Mrs.  Mowatt's  i  Autobiog 
raphy,'  which  seems  to  me  an  admirable  book.  Of 
all  things  I  delight  in  autobiographies  ;  and  I  hardly 
ever  read  one  that  interested  me  so  much."  He  did 
not  read  for  erudition  or  for  criticism,  but  he  certainly 
read  much,  and  books  were  companions  to  him.  I 
have  seen  several  catalogues  of  libraries  which  Haw 
thorne  had  marked  carefully,  proving  that,  although 
he  made  no  annotations,  he  had  studied  the  titles  with 
a  natural  reader's  loving  fondness.  His  stay  at  Leam 
ington  was  but  a  brief  one,  and  for  that  reason  he 
may  well  have  been  without  books  in  his  study  at  the 
moment ;  he  never  crowded  them  about  himself,  in  the 
rooms  where  he  worked,  but  his  tower-study  at  The 
Wayside  always  contained  a  few  volumes,  and  a  few 
small  pictures  and  ornaments — enough  to  relieve  his 
eye  or  suggest  a  refreshment  to  his  mind,  without  dis 
tracting  him  from  composition  or  weakening  the  ab 
sorbed  intensity  of  his  thought. 

The  only  approach  to  literary  exertion  made  at  Liv 
erpool  seems  to  have  been  the  revision  of  the  "  Mosses 
from  an  Old  Manse,"  for  a  reissue  at  the  hands  of 
Ticknor  &  Fields  ;  employment  which  led  to  some  re 
flections  upon  his  own  earlier  works. 

"  I  am  very  glad  that  the  '  Mosses  *  have  come  into 
the  hands  of  our  firm ;  and  I  return  the  copy  sent  me, 
after  a  careful  revision.  When  I  wrote  those  dreamy 
sketches,  I  little  thought  I  should  ever  preface  an 
edition  for  the  press  amid  the  bustling  life  of  a  Liver 
pool  consulate.  Upon  my  honor,  1  am  not  quite  sure 


532  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

that  I  entirely  comprehend  my  own  meaning,  in  some 
of  those  blasted  allegories ;  but  I  remember  that  I  al 
ways  had  a  meaning,  or  at  least  thought  I  had.  I  am 
a  good  deal  changed  since  those  times  ;  and,  to  tell 
you  the  truth,  my  past  self  is  not  very  much  to  my 
taste,  as  I  see  myself  in  this  book.  Yet  certainly  there 
is  more  in  it  than  the  public  generally  gave  me  credit 
for  at  the  time  it  was  written. 

"But  I  don't  think  myself  worthy  of  very  much 
more  credit  than  I  got.  It  has  been  a  very  disagree 
able  task  to  read  the  book." 

Pie  was  inveigled,  however,  into  giving  encourage 
ment  to  that  unfortunate  woman,  Miss  Delia  Bacon, 
who  was  engaged  in  the  task  of  proving  that  Lord 
Bacon  wrote  Shakespeare's  plays.  He  corresponded 
with  her  on  the  subject,  and  finally  agreed,  although 
not  assenting  to  her  theory,  to  write  a  preface  for  her 
book,  which  he  did.  She  was  dissatisfied  because  he 
did  not  accept  her  views  entirely,  grew  very  angry,  and 
even  broke  off  all  relations  with  him,  notwithstanding 
that  he  had  paid  the  expenses  of  publication  for  her. 

Arriving  at  Home  in  February,  1858,  Hawthorne 
lingered  there  until  late  in  May,  when  he  retired  to 
Florence,  and  hired  there  the  Villa  Montauto,  in  the 
suburb  of  Bellosguardo.  October  found  him  again 
in  Rome,  where  he  spent  the  winter;  leaving  the 
Continent,  finally,  in  June,  1859,  for  England  and 
Kedcar. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  have  stayed  away  too  long,"  he 
wrote  from  Bellosguardo,  to  Mr.  Fields,  in  September, 
1858,  "  and  am  forgotten  by  everybody.  You  have 
piled  up  the  dusty  remnants  of  my  editions,  I  sup 
pose,  in  that  chamber  over  the  shop,  where  you  once 
took  me  to  smoke  a  cigar,  and  have  crossed  my  name 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  533 

out  of  your  list  of  authors,  without  so  much  as  asking 
whether  I  am  dead  or  alive.  But  I  like  it  well  enough, 
nevertheless.  It  is  pleasant  to  feel  that  at  last  I  am 
away  from  America,  —  a  satisfaction  that  I  never  en 
joyed  as  long  as  I  stayed  in  Liverpool,  where  it  seemed 
to  me  that  the  quintessence  of  nasal  and  hand-shaking 
Yankeedom  was  continually  filtered  and  sublimated 
through  my  consulate,  on  the  way  outward  and  home 
ward.  I  first  got  acquainted  with  my  own  country 
men  there.  At  Rome,  too,  it  was  not  much  better. 
But  here  in  Florence,  and  in  the  summer-time,  and  in 
this  secluded  villa,  I  have  escaped  from  all  my  old 
tracks  and  am  really  remote. 

"I  like  my  present  residence  immensely.  The 
house  stands  on  a  hill,  overlooking  Florence,  and  is 
big  enough  to  quarter  a  regiment ;  insomuch  that 
each  member  of  the  family,  including  servants,  has  a 
separate  suite  of  apartments,  and  there  are  vast  wil 
dernesses  of  upper  rooms,  into  which  we  have  never 
yet  sent  exploring  expeditions. 

"  At  one  end  of  the  house  there  is  a  moss-grown 
tower  haunted  by  the  ghost  of  a  monk,  who  was  con 
fined  there  in  the  thirteenth  century,  previous  to  being 
burned  at  the  stake  in  the  principal  square  of  Florence. 
I  hire  this  villa,  tower  and  all,  at  twenty-eight  dollars 
a  month  ;  but  I  mean  to  take  it  away  bodily  and  clap 
it  into  a  romance  which  I  have  in  my  head  ready  to  be 
written  out."  Turning  to  the  topic  of  home,  he  went 
jm  :  "  After  so  long  an  absence  (more  than  five  years 
already,  which  will  be  six  before  you  see  me  at  the 
Old  Corner),  it  is  not  altogether  delightful  to  think  of 
returning.  Everybody  will  be  changed,  and  I,  myself, 
no  doubt,  as  much  as  anybody.  ...  It  won't  do.  I 
shall  be  forced  to  come  back  again  and  take  refuge  in 


534  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

a  London  lodging.  London  is  like  the  grave  in  ono 
respect,  —  any  man  can  make  himself  at  home  there  ; 
and  whenever  a  man  finds  himself  homeless  elsewhere, 
he  had  better  either  die  or  go  to  London. 

"  Speaking  of  the  grave  reminds  me  of  old  age  and 
other  disagreeable  matters,  and  I  would  remark  that 
one  grows  old  in  Italy  twice  or  three  times  as  fast  as 
in  other  countries.  I  have  three  gray  hairs  now  for 
one  that  I  brought  from  England,  and  I  shall  look 
venerable  indeed  by  the  time  I  return  next  summer." 

The  "  French  and  Italian  Note-Books "  are  more 
prolific  in  literary  hints  than  the  English.  At  Rome 
and  Florence  the  practical  self,  which  was  necessarily 
brought  forward  in  the  daily  round  at  the  consulate  and 
left  its  impress  on  the  letters  to  Lieutenant  Bridge,  re 
tired  into  the  background  under  the  influence  of  scenes 
more  purely  picturesque  and  poetic  than  those  of  Eng 
land  ;  and  the  idealizing,  imaginative  faculty  of  Haw 
thorne,  being  freed  from  the  restraint  which  had  so 
long  cramped  it,  gained  in  elasticity  from  day  to  day. 
Four  years  of  confinement  to  business,  broken  only  at 
intervals  by  short  episodes  of  travel,  had  done  no  more 
than  impede  the  current  of  fancy ;  had  not  dried  it, 
nor  choked  the  source.  Mr.  Fields  assures  us  that, 
in  England,  Hawthorne  told  him  he  had  no  less  than 
five  romances  in  his  mind,  so  well  planned  that  he 
could  write  any  one  of  them  at  short  notice.  But  it  is 
significant  that,  however  favorable  Italy  might  be  for 
drawing  out  and  giving  free  course  to  this  current,  he 
could  do  little  there  in  the  way  of  embodying  his  con 
ceptions,  lie  wrote  out  an  extensive  first  draft  of 
"  The  Marble  Faun  "  while  moving  from  place  to  place 
on  the  actual  ground  where  the  story  is  laid ;  but  the 
work  itself  was  written  at  liedcar,  and  in  the  commu< 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  535 

nication  last  quoted  from  he  had  said :  "  I  find  this 
Italian  atmosphere  not  favorable  to  the  close  toil  of 
composition,  although  it  is  a  very  good  air  to  dream 
in.  I  must  breathe  the  fogs  of  old  England,  or  the 
east-winds  of  Massachusetts,  in  order  to  put  me  into 
working-trim."  Conditions  other  than  physical  were 
most  probably  responsible,  in  part,  for  this  state  of 
things.  Strong  as  Hawthorne's  nature  was  on  the 
side  of  the  real,  the  ideal  force  within  him  was  so  much 
more  puissant,  that  when  circumstances  were  all  pro 
pitious  —  as  they  were  in  Italy  —  it  obtained  too  com 
manding  a  sway  over  him.  His  dreams,  in  such  case, 
would  be  apt  to  overcome  him,  to  exist  simply  for  their 
own  sake  instead  of  being  subordinated  to  his  will ; 
and,  in  fine,  to  expend  their  witchery  upon  the  air,  in 
stead  of  being  imprisoned  in  the  enduring  form  of  a 
book.  Being  compounded  in  such  singular  wise  of  op 
posing  qualities  :  the  customary,  prudential,  common 
sensible  ones,  and  the  wise  and  visionary  ones  —  the 
outward  reticence,  and  (if  we  may  say  so)  the  inward 
eloquence  —  of  which  we  now  have  a  clearer  view  ; 
being  so  compounded,  he  positively  needed  something 
stern  and  adverse  in  his  surroundings,  it  should  seem, 
both  as  a  satisfaction  to  the  sturdier  part  of  him,  and 
as  a  healthful  check  which,  by  exciting  reaction,  would 
stimulate  his  imaginative  mood.  He  must  have  pre 
cisely  the  right  proportion  between  these  counter  in 
fluences,  or  else  creation  could  not  proceed.  In  the 
Salem  Custom  House  and  at  the  Liverpool  consulate 
there  had  been  too  much  of  the  hard  commonplace  : 
instead  of  serving  as  a  convenient  foil  to  the  more  ex 
pansive  and  lightsome  tendencies  of  his  genius,  it  had 
weighed  them  down.  But  in  Italy  there  was  too  much 
freedom,  not  enough  framework  of  the  severe,  the 


536  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

roughly  real  and  unpicturesque.  Hawthorne's  intel 
lectual  and  poetic  nature  presents  a  spectacle  some 
what  like  that  of  a  granite  rock  upon  which  delicate 
vines  flourish  at  their  best ;  but  he  was  himself  both 
rock  and  vine.  The  delicate,  aspiring  tendrils  and 
the  rich  leafage  of  the  plant,  however,  required  a  par 
ticular  combination  of  soil  and  climate,  in  order  to 
grow  well.  When  he  was  not  hemmed  in  by  the  round 
of  official  details,  England  afforded  him  that  combina 
tion  in  bounteous  measure. 

On  the  publication  of  "The  Marble  Faun,"  the 
author's  friend,  John  Lothrop  Motley,  with  whom  he 
had  talked,  of  the  contemplated  romance,  in  Home, 
wrote  to  him  from  Walton -on -Thames  (March  29, 
1860)  :  - 

"  Everything  that  you  have  ever  written,  I  believe, 
I  have  read  many  times,  and  I  am  particularly  vain 
of  having  admired  '  Sights  from  a  Steeple,'  when  I 
first  read  it  in  the  Boston  '  Token,'  several  hundred 
years  ago,  when  we  were  both  younger  than  we  are 
now ;  of  having  detected  and  cherished,  at  a  later  day, 
an  old  Apple-Dealer,  whom  I  believe  you  have  un 
handsomely  thrust  out  of  your  presence  now  that  you 
are  grown  so  great.  But  the  4  Romance  of  Monte 
Beni '  has  the  additional  charm  for  me,  that  it  is  the 
first  book  of  yours  that  I  have  read  since  I  had  the 
privilege  of  making  your  personal  acquaintance.  My 
memory  goes  back  at  once  to  those  walks  (alas,  not 
too  frequent)  we  used  to  take  along  the  Tiber,  or  in 
the  Campagna  .  .  .  and  it  is  delightful  to  get  hold  of 
the  book  now,  and  know  that  it  is  impossible  for  you 
any  longer,  after  waving  your  wand  as  you  occasion 
ally  did  then,  indicating  where  the  treasure  was  hid 
den,  to  sink  it  again  beyond  plummet's  sound. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  537 

"I  admire  the  book  exceedingly  ...  It  is  one 
which,  for  the  first  reading  at  least,  I  did  n't  like  to 
hear  aloud.  ...  If  I  were  composing  an  article  for  a 
review,  of  course  I  should  feel  obliged  to  show  cause 
for  my  admiration ;  but  I  am  only  obeying  an  impulse. 
Permit  me  to  say,  however,  that  your  style  seems,  if 
possible,  more  perfect  than  ever.  .  .  .  Believe  me,  I 
don't  say  to  you  half  what  I  say  behind  your  back ; 
and  I  have  said  a  dozen  times  that  nobody  can  write 
English  but  you.  With  regard  to  the  story,  which 
has  been  somewhat  criticized,  I  can  only  say  that  to 
me  it  is  quite  satisfactory.  I  like  those  shadowy,  weird, 
fantastic,  Hawthornesque  shapes  flitting  through  the 
golden  gloom,  which  is  the  atmosphere  of  the  book. 
I  like  the  misty  way  in  which  the  story  is  indicated 
rather  than  revealed ;  the  outlines  are  quite  definite 
enough  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  to  those  who 
have  imagination  enough  to  follow  you  in  your  airy 
flights.  .  .  .  The  way  in  which  the  two  victims  dance 
through  the  Carnival  on  the  last  day  is  very  striking. 
It  is  like  a  Greek  tragedy  in  its  effect,  without  being 
in  the  least  Greek." 

In  this  last  sentence  Mr.  Motley  struck  out  an  apt 
distinction  ;  for  it  is  perhaps  the  foremost  character 
istic  of  Hawthorne  as  a  writer  that  his  fictions  pos 
sessed  a  plastic  repose,  a  perfection  of  form,  which 
made  them  akin  to  classic  models,  at  the  same  time 
that  the  spirit  was  throughout  eminently  that  belong 
ing  to  the  mystic,  capricious,  irregular  fantasy  of  the 
North. 

Hawthorne  thus  made  answer  from  Bath  (April  1, 
I860):  — 

MY  DEAK  MOTLEY,  —  You  are  certainly  that  Gen- 


538  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

tie  Reader  for  whom  all  my  books  were  exclusively 
written.  Nobody  else  (my  wife  excepted,  who  speaks 
so  near  me  that  I  cannot  tell  her  voice  from  my  own) 
has  ever  said  exactly  what  I  love  to  hear.  It  is  most 
satisfactory  to  be  hit  upon  the  raw,  to  be  shot  straight 
through  the  heart.  It  is  not  the  quantity  of  your 
praise  that  I  care  so  much  about  (though  I  gather  it 
all  up  carefully,  lavish  as  you  are  of  it),  but  the 
kind,  for  you  take  the  book  precisely  as  I  meant  it ; 
and  if  your  note  had  come  a  few  days  sooner,  I  believe 
I  would  have  printed  it  in  a  postscript  which  I  have 
added  to  the  second  edition,  because  it  explains  better 
than  I  found  possible  to  do  the  way  in  which  my  ro 
mance  ought  to  be  taken.  .  .  .  Now  don't  suppose 
that  I  fancy  the  book  to  be  a  tenth  part  as  good  as 
you  say  it  is.  You  work  out  my  imperfect  efforts,  and 
half  make  the  book  with  your  warm  imagination,  and 
see  what  I  myself  saw  but  could  only  hint  at.  Well, 
the  romance  is  a  success,  even  if  it  never  finds  another 
reader. 

We  spent  the  winter  in  Leamington,  whither  we 
had  come  from  the  sea-coast  in  October.  I  am  sorry 
to  say  that  it  was  another  winter  of  sorrow  and  anx 
iety.  ...  I  have  engaged  our  passages  for  June  16th. 
.  .  .  Mrs.  Hawthorne  and  the  children  will  probably 
remain  in  Bath  till  the  eve  of  our  departure ;  but  I 
intend  to  pay  one  more  visit  of  a  week  or  two  to  Lon 
don,  and  shall  certainly  come  and  see  you.  I  wonder 
at  your  lack  of  recognition  of  my  social  propensities. 
I  take  so  much  delight  in  my  friends,  that  a  little  in 
tercourse  goes  a  great  way,  and  illuminates  my  life  be 
fore  and  after.  .  .  .  Your  friend, 
NATHANIEL  HAWTHOKNE. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  539 

One  may  well  linger  here,  for  an  instant,  over  the 
calm,  confident,  but  deeply  vibrating  happiness  from 
which  those  words  sprang,  concerning  his  wife,  "  who 
speaks  so  near  me  that  I  cannot  tell  her  voice  from  my 
own ; "  and  one  may  profitably  lay  away,  for  instruc 
tion,  the  closing  lines,  —  "I  take  so  much  delight  in 
my  friends,  that  a  little  intercourse  goes  a  great  way." 
The  allusion  to  "  another  winter  of  sorrow  and  anx 
iety  "  carries  us  back  to  the  previous  winter,  passed 
in  Rome,  during  which  Hawthorne's  elder  daughter 
underwent  a  prolonged  attack  of  Roman  fever.  Ill 
ness  again  developed  itself  in  his  family  while  they 
were  staying  at  Leamington. 

In  February  of  1860  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Fields,  who 
was  then  in  Italy  :  — 

"  I  thank  you  most  heartily  for  your  kind  wishes  in 
favor  of  the  forthcoming  work  ['The  Marble  Faun'], 
and  sincerely  join  my  own  prayers  to  yours  in  its  be 
half,  without  much  confidence  of  a  good  result.  My 
own  opinion  is,  that  I  am  not  really  a  popular  writer, 
and  that  what  popularity  I  have  gained  is  chiefly  ac 
cidental,  and  owing  to  other  causes  than  my  own  kind 
or  degree  of  merit.  Possibly  I  may  (or  may  not)  de 
serve  something  better  than  popularity;  but  looking 
at  all  my  productions,  and  especially  this  latter  one, 
with  a  cold  or  critical  eye,  I  can  see  that  they  do  not 
make  their  appeal  to  the  popular  mind.  It  is  odd 
enough,  moreover,  that  my  own  individual  taste  is  for 
quite  another  class  of  works  than  those  which  I  my 
self  am  able  to  write.  If  I  were  to  meet  with  such 
books  as  mine  by  another  writer,  I  don't  believe  I 
should  be  able  to  get  through  them."  At  another 
time  he  had  written  of  Anthony  Trollope's  novels: 
4t  They  precisely  suit  my  taste  ;  solid  and  substantial, 


540  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

written  on  the  strength  of  beef  and  through  the  inspi 
ration  of  ale,  and  just  as  real  as  if  some  giant  had 
hewn  a  great  lump  out  of  the  earth  and  put  it  under 
a  glass  case,  with  all  its  inhabitants  going  about  their 
daily  business  and  not  suspecting  that  they  were  made 
a  show  of." 

Before  leaving  England  for  the  last  time,  Hawthorne 
went  up  alone  to  London,  and  spent  a  week  or  two 
among  his  friends  there,  staying  with  Motley,  and 
meeting  Lord  Dufferin,  the  Honorable  Mrs.  Norton, 
Leigh  Hunt,  Barry  Cornwall,  and  many  other  agree 
able  and  noted  persons.  "  You  would  be  stricken 
dumb,"  he  wrote  to  his  wife,  who  remained  at  Bath, 
"  to  see  how  quietly  I  accept  a  whole  string  of  invita 
tions,  and,  what  is  more,  perform  my  engagements 
without  a  murmur.  .  .  .  The  stir  of  this  London  life, 
somehow  or  other,  has  done  me  a  wonderful  deal  of 
good,  and  I  feel  better  than  for  months  past.  This  is 
strange,  for  if  I  had  my  choice,  I  should  leave  undone 
almost  all  the  things  I  do."  In  the  midst  of  these 
social  occupations  he  gave  sittings  to  a  young  German- 
American  sculptor  named  Kuntze,  who  modelled  a  pro 
file  portrait  of  him  in  bas-relief.  A  farewell  dinner 
was  given  him  at  Barry  Cornwall's  ;  and  in  June, 
1860,  he  sailed  for  America,  from  which  he  had  been 
absent  seven  years. 

There  was  not  yet  any  serious  sign  of  a  failure  in 
his  health  ;  but  the  illness  in  his  family,  lasting 
through  two  winters,  had  worn  severely  upon  him  ;  his 
spirits  had  begun  to  droop.  "  I  would  gladly  journal 
ize  some  of  my  proceedings,  and  describe  things  and 
people  ;  but  I  find  the  same  coldness  and  stiffness  in 
my  pen  as  always  since  our  return  to  England  : "  thus 
he  had  written  in  his  Note-Book,  while  making  that 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  541 

final  London  visit.  In  Italy,  however,  he  had  already 
shown  symptoms  of  fatigue,  saying  to  Mr.  Fields : 
"  I  have  had  so  many  interruptions  from  things  to  see 
and  things  to  suffer,  that  the  story  ['The  Marble 
Faun  ']  has  developed  itself  in  a  very  imperfect  way. 
...  I  could  finish  it  in  the  time  that  I  am  to  remain 
here,  but  my  brain  is  tired  of  it  just  now."  The  voy 
age  put  fresh  vigor  into  him,  apparently.  Mrs.  Har 
riet  Beecher  Stowe  and  Professor  Stowe  were  on  board, 
with  their  daughters,  and  Mr.  Fields,  who  was  also  a 
passenger,  has  said  :  "  Hawthorne's  love  for  the  sea 
amounted  to  a  passionate  worship,  and  while  I  (the 
worst  sailor  probably  on  this  planet)  was  longing, 
spite  of  the  good  company  on  board,  to  reach  land  as 
soon  as  possible,  Hawthorne  was  constantly  saying  in 
his  quiet,  earnest  way,  '  I  should  like  to  sail  on  and 
on  forever,  and  never  touch  the  shore  again.'  J!  His 
inherited  susceptibility  to  the  fascination  of  the  sea 
no  doubt  intensified  his  enjoyment,  and  he  is  reported 
to  have  talked  in  a  strain  of  delightful  humor  while  on 
shipboard. 

For  nearly  a  year  after  his  return  to  The  Wayside, 
there  is  an  uneventful  gap  in  his  history,  concerning 
which  we  have  very  few  details.  He  set  about  improv 
ing  his  house,  and  added  to  it  a  wing  at  the  back, 
which,  having  three  stories,  rose  above  the  rest  of  the 
building,  and  thus  supplied  him  with  a  study  in  the 
top  room,  which  had  the  effect  of  a  tower.  Meanwhile 
the  political  quarrel  between  the  North  and  the  South 
was  rapidly  culminating ;  in  a  few  months  the  Slave 
States  began  their  secession,  and  the  Civil  War  broke 
out.  This  affected  Hawthorne  so  deeply  that  for  some 
time  he  was  unable  to  engage  in  imaginative  work,  and 
he  now  relinquished  the  custom  he  had  maintained  for 


542  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

so  many  years,  of  keeping  a  journal.  But  there  are 
letters  which  define  his  state  of  mind,  which  make  his 
position  clear  with  regard  to  the  question  of  the 
Union,  and  show  the  change  in  his  feeling  brought  on 
by  the  course  of  events. 

Several  years  before,  while  he  was  still  consul,  he 
thus  confided  to  Bridge  (January  9,  1857)  his  gen 
eral  opinion  respecting  the  crisis  which  even  then  im 
pended  :  — 

"  I  regret  that  you  think  so  doubtfully  of  the  pros 
pects  of  the  Union ;  for  I  should  like  well  enough  to 
hold  on  to  the  old  thing.  And  yet  I  must  confess 
that  I  sympathize  to  a  large  extent  with  the  Northern 
feeling,  and  think  it  is  about  time  for  us  to  make  a 
stand.  If  compelled  to  choose,  I  go  for  the  North. 
At  present,  we  have  no  country  —  at  least,  none  in  the 
sense  in  which  an  Englishman  has  a  country.  I  never 
conceived,  in  reality,  what  a  true  and  warm  love  of 
country  is,  till  I  witnessed  it  in  the  breasts  of  English 
men.  The  States  are  too  various  and  too  extended  to 
form  really  one  country.  New  England  is  quite  as 
large  a  lump  of  earth  as  my  heart  can  really  take  in. 
.  .  .  However,  I  have  no  kindred  with  nor  leaning 
toward  the  Abolitionists." 

When  hostilities  had  begun,  he  wrote  to  the  same 
friend,  May  26,  1861 :  — 

"  The  war,  strange  to  say,  has  had  a  beneficial  ef 
fect  upon  my  spirits,  which  were  flagging  woefully  be 
fore  it  broke  out.  But  it  was  delightful  to  share  in 
the  heroic  sentiment  of  the  time,  and  to  feel  that  I 
had  a  country,  a  consciousness  which  seemed  to  make 
me  young  again.  One  thing  as  regards  this  matter  I 
regret,  and  one  thing  I  am  glad  of.  The  regrettable 
thing  is  that  I  am  too  old  to  shoulder  a  musket  my 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  543 

self,  and  the  joyful  thing  is  that  Julian  is  too  young 
He  drills  constantly  with  a  company  of  lads,  and 
means  to  enlist  as  soon  as  he  reaches  the  minimum 
age.  But  I  trust  we  shall  either  be  victorious  or  van 
quished  by  that  time.  Meantime,  though  I  approve 
the  war  as  much  as  any  man,  I  don't  quite  see  what 
we  are  fighting  for  or  what  definite  result  can  be  ex 
pected.  If  we  pommel  the  South  ever  so  hard,  they 
will  love  us  none  the  better  for  it ;  and  even  if  we 
subjugate  them,  our  next  step  should  be  to  cut  them 
adrift,  if  we  are  fighting  for  the  annihilation  of  slav 
ery.  To  be  sure,  it  may  be  a  wise  object,  and  offers 
a  tangible  result  and  the  only  one  which  is  consistent 
with  a  future  union  between  North  and  South.  A 
continuance  of  the  war  would  soon  make  this  plain 
to  us,  and  we  should  see  the  expediency  of  preparing 
our  black  brethren  for  future  citizenship,  by  allowing 
them  to  fight  for  their  own  liberties  and  educating 
them  through  heroic  influences.  Whatever  happens 
next,  I  must  say  that  I  rejoice  that  the  old  Union  is 
smashed.  We  never  were  one  people,  and  never  really 
had  a  country  since  the  Constitution  was  formed." 

Thus,  then,  Hawthorne,  who  had  been  brought  up 
politically  within  the  democratic  party  and  thrice 
held  office  under  its  regime,  had  reached  the  conclu 
sion,  four  years  in  advance  of  the  event,  that  it  was 
time  for  the  North  to  "  make  a  stand  "  ;  and  now, 
while  muskets  rattled  their  grim  prelude  to  a  long 
and  deadly  conflict,  he  planted  himself  firmly  on  the 
side  of  the  government  —  was  among  the  first,  more 
over,  to  resolve  upon  that  policy  of  arming  the  ne 
groes,  which  was  so  bitterly  opposed  and  so  slow  of 
adoption  among  even  progressive  reformers  at  the 
North.  In  his  solitude,  out  of  the  current  of  affairs, 


544  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

trying  to  pursue  his  own  peaceful,  artistic  calling,  and 
little  used  to  making  utterances  on  public  questions, 
it  was  not  incumbent  upon  him  nor  proper  to  his 
character  to  blazon  his  beliefs  where  every  one  could 
see  them.  But,  these  private  expressions  being  un 
known,  his  silence  was  construed  against  him.  One 
more  reference  to  the  war,  occurring  in  a  letter  of 
October  12,  1861,  to  Lieutenant  Bridge,  should  be  re 
corded  in  this  place  :  — 

"  I  am  glad  you  take  such  a  hopeful  view  of  our 
national  prospects,  so  far  as  regards  the  war.  .  .  . 
For  my  part,  I  don't  hope  (nor  indeed  wish)  to  see 
the  Union  restored  as  it  was;  amputation  seems  to 
me  much  the  better  plan,  and  all  we  ought  to  fight  for 
is  the  liberty  of  selecting  the  point  where  our  diseased 
members  shall  be  lopped  off.  I  would  fight  to  the 
death  for  the  Northern  Slave-States,  and  let  the  rest 
go.  .  .  .  I  have  not  found  it  possible  to  occupy  my 
mind  with  its  usual  trash  and  nonsense  during  these 
anxious  times  ;  but  as  the  autumn  advances,  I  find 
myself  sitting  down  to  my  desk  and  blotting  succes 
sive  sheets  of  paper,  as  of  yore.  Very  likely  I  may 
have  something  ready  for  the  public  long  before  the 
public  is  ready  to  receive  it." 

It  will  be  seen  that  he  was  not  hopeful  as  to  the 
restoration  of  the  entire  Union,  adhered  to  his  first 
view  indeed,  that  the  scission  of  a  part  would  be  pref 
erable.  In  declining  a  cordial  invitation  from  Bridge 
to  come  to  Washington,  in  February,  1862,  he  gave 
renewed  emphasis  to  this  opinion.  "I  am  not  very 
well,"  he  said,  "  being  mentally  and  physically  Ian. 
guid  ;  but  I  suppose  there  is  an  even  chance  that  the 
trip  and  change  of  scene  might  supply  the  energy 
which  I  lack."  He  announced  that  he  had  begun  a 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  545 

new  romance,  and  then  turning  to  the  questions  of  the 
day,  remarked  that  he  "  should  not  much  regret  an 
ultimate  separation,"  and  that  soon ;  adding  that  if  a 
strong  Union  sentiment  should  not  set  in  at  the  South, 
we  ought  to  resolve  ourselves  into  two  nations  at  once, 
He  was  evidently  growing  despondent ;  a  fact  which 
may  have  been  due  in  part  to  the  physical  and  mental 
languor  of  which  he  told  his  friend.  Misfortune  had 
once  more  entered  his  household  ;  for  one  of  his  chil 
dren  was  suffering  from  a  peculiarly  distressing  mal 
ady,  which  imposed  a  heavy  strain  upon  his  nerves 
and  troubled  his  heart.  More  than  this,  he  mourned 
over  the  multitude  of  private  griefs  which  he  saw  or 
apprehended  on  every  side  —  griefs  resulting  from  the 
slaughter  that  was  going  on  at  the  seat  of  war  —  as 
acutely  as  if  they  had  been  his  own  losses.  He  could 
not  shut  out,  by  any  wall  of  patriotic  fire,  the  terri 
ble  shapes  of  fierce  passion  and  the  pathetic  appari 
tions  of  those  whose  lives  had  been  blasted  by  the 
tragedies  of  the  field.  His  health,  we  have  already 
noticed,  had  begun  to  falter  while  he  was  still  abroad. 
Neither  was  he  free  from  pecuniary  anxieties.  He 
had  laid  up  a  modest  accumulation  from  his  earnings 
in  the  consulate  ;  but  the  additions  to  his  house,  un 
ambitious  though  they  were,  had  cost  a  sum  which 
was  large  in  proportion  to  his  resources;  the  expense 
of  living  was  increased  by  the  war,  and  his  pen  was 
for  the  time  being  not  productive.  His  income  from 
his  books  was  always  scanty.  He  was  too  scrupulous 
to  be  willing  to  draw  upon  the  principal  which  had 
been  invested  for  the  future  support  of  his  family; 
and  there  were  times  when  he  was  harassed  by  the 
need  of  money.  All  these  causes  conspired  to  reduce 
his  strength ;  but  the  omnipresent  misery  of  the  war, 

VOL.  xii.  36 


546  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

and  the  destruction  of  the  Union,  which  he  believed  to 
be  inevitable,  were  perhaps  the  chief  adverse  factors 
in  the  case.  "  Hawthorne's  life,"  Mr.  Lowell  has  said 
to  me,  "  was  shortened  by  the  war." 

The  romance  mentioned  as  having  been  begun  dur 
ing  this  winter  of  1861-62,  was  probably  "  Dr.  Grim- 
shawe's  Secret,"  the  first  scheme  of  which  appears  as 
"  The  Ancestral  Footstep ; "  and  it  was  afterwards 
merged  in  "  Septimius  Felton."  Hawthorne,  however, 
did  not  make  satisfactory  progress  with  this  work; 
and  throughout  the  summer  of  1862  he  seems  to  have 
given  such  energies  as  he  could  command  to  the  prep 
aration  of  the  chapters  of  travel  subsequently  col 
lected  under -the  title,  "  Our  Old  Home."  The  latter 
volume  appeared  at  a  time  of  fervid,  nay,  violent  pub 
lic  excitement,  caused  by  the  critical  state  of  military 
matters,  the  unpopularity  of  the  draft,  the  increasing 
boldness  of  the  democratic  party  at  the  North  in  op 
posing  the  war  and  demanding  its  cessation.  To  Haw 
thorne  it  appeared  no  more  than  just  that  he  should 
dedicate  his  book  to  the  friend  whose  public  act,  in 
sending  him  abroad  in  the  government  service,  had 
made  it  possible  for  him  to  gather  the  materials  he  had 
embodied  in  these  reminiscences.  But  his  publisher, 
Mr.  Fields,  knowing  that  ex-President  Pierce  was  very 
generally  held  to  be  culpable  for  his  deference  towards 
Southern  leaders  who  had  done  much  to  bring  on  the 
war,  and  that  he  was  ranked  among  the  men  who  were 
ready  to  vote  against  continuing  the  attempt  to  conquer 
the  Confederacy,  foresaw  the  clamor  which  would  be 
raised  against  Hawthorne  if,  at  such  a  moment,  he 
linked  his  name  publicly  with  that  of  Pierce.  He  r& 
monstrated  upon  the  proposed  dedication.  But  Haw 
thorne  was  not  to  be  turned  aside  from  his  purpose  by 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  547 

any  dread  of  an  outcry  which  he  considered  unjust. 
"  I  find,"  he  replied,  "  that  it  would  be  a  piece  of  pol 
troonery  in  me  to  withdraw  either  the  dedication  or 
the  dedicatory  letter,  .  .  .  and  if  he  [Pierce]  is  so 
exceedingly  unpopular  that  his  name  is  enough  to  sink 
the  volume,  there  is  so  much  the  more  need  that  an 
old  friend  should  stand  by  him.  I  cannot,  merely  on 
account  of  pecuniary  profit  or  literary  reputation,  go 
back  from  what  I  have  deliberately  felt  and  thought 
it  right  to  do ;  and  if  I  were  to  tear  out  the  dedication, 
I  should  never  look  at  the  volume  again  without  re 
morse  and  shame.  ...  If  the  public  of  the  North 
see  fit  to  ostracize  me  for  this,  I  can  only  say  that  I 
would  gladly  sacrifice  a  thousand  or  two  of  dollars 
rather  than  retain  the  good-will  of  such  a  herd  of 
dolts  and  mean-spirited  scoundrels."  The  language 
did  not  lack  vigor  and  warmth ;  but  Dr.  Loring  has 
stated  that  he  spoke  of  the  matter  to  the  same  effect, 
"  not  in  the  heat  of  passion,  but  with  a  calm  and  gen 
erous  courage."  The  dedicatory  letter  was  printed, 
of  course,  and  drew  down  upon  Hawthorne  abundant 
condemnation  ;  but  he  had  maintained  his  integrity. 

The  shock  of  such  an  accident  was  by  no  means  the 
right  sort  of  tonic  for  a  man  of  Hawthorne's  sensitive 
disposition  when  he  was  already  feeble  and  almost  ill. 
In  April,  1862,  he  had  been  to  Washington,  and  the 
things  that  impressed  him  there  were  noted  down  in  an 
"  Atlantic  Monthly  "  paper,  entitled  "  Chiefly  About 
War  Matters."  At  Washington,  also,  Leutze  painted 
a  portrait  of  him  for  General  Pierce.  In  July,  he  took 
a  brief  trip  with  his  son  to  the  Maine  coast,  and  began 
a  new  journal.  There  were  no  other  changes  of  scene 
for  him  ;  the  monotony  of  his  life  at  The  Wayside  was 
seldom  broken.  That  this  period  was  for  him  one  of 


548  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

unmitigated  gloom  cannot  truthfully  be  predicated ;  he 
enjoyed  his  home,  he  had  the  society  of  his  wife  and 
children ;  he  had  many  small  and  quiet  pleasures.  But 
there  was  likewise  much  to  make  him  sorrowful,  and 
the  tide  of  vitality  was  steadily  ebbing  away.  In  May, 
1863,  James  Russell  Lowell  invited  him  to  Elmwood, 
and  Hawthorne  agreed  to  go,  but  he  was  finally  pre 
vented  from  doing  so  by  a  troublesome  cold.  The 
slow  and  mysterious  disease,  which  was  to  prove  fatal 
within  a  year,  continued  to  make  inroads  upon  his  con 
stitution.  After  the  publication  of  "  Our  Old  Home," 
in  the  autumn  of  1863,  there  is  no  certain  record  of 
his  condition  or  his  proceedings,  beyond  this,  that  he 
went  on  declining,  and  that  —  having  abandoned  the 
two  preceding  phases  of  his  new  fiction  —  he  at 
tempted  to  write  the  resultant  form  of  it,  which  was  to 
have  been  brought  out  as  "  The  Dolliver  Romance." 

Although  the  title  had  not  yet  been  determined 
upon,  he  consented  to  begin  a  serial  publication  of  the 
work  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  "  for  January,  1864. 
But  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Fields  ;  "I  don't  see  much  prob 
ability  of  my  having  the  first  chapter  of  the  Romance 
ready  so  soon  as  you  want  it.  There  are  two  or  three 
chapters  ready  to  be  written,  but  I  am  not  yet  robust 
enough  to  begin,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  should  never  carry 
it  through.  ...  I  can  think  of  no  title  for  the  unborn 
Romance.  Always  heretofore  I  have  waited  till  it  was 
quite  complete,  before  attempting  to  name  it,  and  I 
fear  I  shall  have  to  do  so  now."  On  the  1st  of  De 
cember,  he  dispatched  the  manuscript  of  the  first 
chapter,  with  the  title  of  the  whole.  But  he  could  not 
follow  it  up  with  more,  and  wrote,  about  the  middle  of 
January,  1864  :  "  I  am  not  quite  up  to  writing  yet, 
but  shall  make  an  effort  as  soon  as  I  see  any  hope  of 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  549 

At  the  end  of  February :  "  I  hardly  know 
what  to  say  to  the  public  about  this  abortive  Romance, 
though  I  know  pretty  well  what  the  case  will  be.  I 
shall  never  finish  it.  .  .  ,  I  cannot  finish  it  unless  a 
great  change  comes  over  me  ;  and  if  I  make  too  great 
an  effort  to  do  so,  it  will  be  my  death."  From  this 
time  on  he  accomplished  no  work  which  he  was  willing 
to  send  to  the  press,  although  he  had  among  his  papers 
the  two  fragmentary  scenes  from  "  The  Dolliver  Ro 
mance  "  that  were  posthumously  printed. 

The  wife  of  ex-President  Pierce  died  in  December, 

1863,  and   Hawthorne  went   to  New  Hampshire   to 
attend  the  funeral.     When  he  passed  through   Bos 
ton,  on  his  return,  he  appeared  to  Mr.  Fields  ill  and 
more  nervous  than  usual.     Dreary  events  seemed  to 
thicken  around  his  path.     In  the  last  days  of  March, 

1864,  Mr.  Fields  saw  him  again  ;  and  by  this  time  his 
appearance  had  greatly  changed.    "  The  light  in  his  eye 
was  as  beautiful  as  ever,  but  his  limbs  were  shrunken, 
and  his  usual  stalwart  vigor  [was]  utterly  gone."     A 
photograph  taken  not  long  before  that  date  represents 
him  with  cheeks   somewhat  emaciated,  and   a  worn, 
strangely  anxious,   half  -  appealing  expression,  which, 
while  singularly  delicate  and  noble,  is  extremely  sad. 
Soon  after  this,  in  March,  he  set  out  for  Washington 
with  Mr.  William  Ticknor,  Mr.  Fields' s  senior  part 
ner  in  the  publishing  firm  of  Ticknor  &  Fields.      The 
travelling   companions    spent    two    or   three   days    in 
New  York,  and  had  got  as  far  as  Philadelphia,  when 
Mr.  Ticknor  was  taken  suddenly  ill,  at  the  Continen 
tal  Hotel,  and  died  the  next  day.     Stunned,  wellnigh 
shattered  by  this  sinister  event,  Hawthorne  was  al 
most  incapacitated  for  action  of  any  sort ;  but  there 
were  kind  and  ready  friends  in  Philadelphia  who  came 


550  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

to  his  aid,  and  relieved  him  from  the  melancholy  duty 
which  he  would  else  have  had  to  meet.  He  returned 
to  Concord,  in  what  forlorn  state  an  extract  from  a 
letter  of  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  may  best  convey  :  "  He 
came  back  unlocked  for,  that  day  ;  and  when  I  heard 
a  step  on  the  piazza,  I  was  lying  on  a  couch  and  feel 
ing  quite  indisposed.  But  as  soon  as  I  saw  him  I 
was  frightened  out  of  all  knowledge  of  myself,  —  so 
haggard,  so  white,  so  deeply  scored  with  pain  and  fa 
tigue  was  the  face,  so  much  more  ill  than  ever  I  saw 
him  before."  Mrs.  Hawthorne  still  hoped  for  some 
favorable  turn,  if  he  could  but  obtain  a  complete 
change  of  scene  and  escape  from  the  austere  New 
England  spring,  into  some  warmer  climate.  "  He  has 
not  smiled  since  he  came  home  till  to-day,"  she  wrote, 
"  when  I  made  him  laugh,  with  Thackeray's  humor, 
in  reading  to  him."  She  was  constant  in  her  care  ; 
she  would  scarcely  let  him  go  up  and  down  stairs 
alone.  But  not  the  most  tender  solicitude,  nor  any 
encouragement  of  unquenchable  hope,  could  now  avail 
to  help  him. 

The  only  stratagem  that  could  be  devised  to  win 
back  health  and  strength  was  the  plan  proposed  by 
General  Pierce,  to  take  Hawthorne  with  him  on  an 
easy  journey  by  carriage  into  New  Hampshire.  They 
started  in  May,  —  the  two  old  college-mates  ;  the  ex- 
President  so  lately  widowed  and  still  in  the  shadow 
of  his  own  bereavement,  with  the  famous  romancer 
so  mournfully  broken,  who  was  never  more  to  be  seen 
in  life  by  those  to  whom  he  was  dearest.  From  the 
Pemigewasset  House  at  Plymouth,  New  Hampshire, 
where  they  had  stopped  for  the  night,  General  Pierce 
sent  the  news  on  May  19,  that  Hawthorne  was  dead. 
"  He  retired  last  night,"  wrote  the  General,  "  soon 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  551 

after  nine  o'clock,  and  soon  fell  into  a  quiet  slumber. 

...  At  two  o'clock  I  went  to  H 's  bedside ;  he 

was  apparently  in  a  sound  sleep ;  and  I  did  not  place 
my  hand  upon  him.  At  four  o'clock  I  went  into  his 
room  again,  and,  as  his  position  was  unchanged,  I 
placed  my  hand  upon  him  and  found  that  life  was 
extinct.  ...  He  must  have  passed  from  natural  slum 
ber  to  that  from  which  there  is  no  waking,  without  the 
slightest  movement." 

Hawthorne  was  buried  in  Sleepy  Hollow  Cemetery 
at  Concord,  on  the  24th  of  May,  1864.  The  grave  was 
made  beneath  the  shadowing  pines  of  a  hill  near  one 
of  the  borders  of  the  beautiful,  wooded  burial-ground, 
whence  there  is  a  peaceful  view  over  the  valley  of  the 
Concord  River.  It  was  close  to  the  slope  where  Tho- 
reau  now  lies,  and  not  far  away  is  the  grassy  resting- 
place  of  Emerson.  The  spot  was  one  for  which  Haw 
thorne  had  cherished  an  especial  fondness.  Emerson, 
that  day,  stood  beside  the  grave,  and  with  him  Long 
fellow  and  Lowell  were  present ;  Agassiz,  Holmes, 
James  Freeman  Clarke,  Edwin  Whipple,  Pierce,  and 
Hillard,  had  all  assembled  to  pay  their  last  reverence. 
A  great  multitude  of  people  attended  the  funeral  ser 
vice  at  the  old  Unitarian  First  Church  in  the  village, 
and  Mr.  Clarke,  who  had  performed  the  marriage  cere 
mony  for  Hawthorne,  conducted  the  rites  above  him 
dead.  It  was  a  perfect  day  of  spring ;  the  roadside 
banks  were  blue  with  violets,  the  orchards  were  in 
bloom ;  and  lilies  of  the  valley,  which  were  Hawthorne's 
favorites  among  flowers,  had  blossomed  early  as  if  for 
him,  and  were  gathered  in  masses  about  him.  Like  a 
requiem  chant,  the  clear  strains  that  Longfellow  wrote 
in  memory  of  that  hour  still  echo  for  us  its  tender  so- 
lemnity: — 


552  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

"  How  beautiful  it  was,  that  one  bright  day 

In  the  long  week  of  rain  ! 
Though  all  its  splendor  could  not  chase  away 
The  omnipresent  pain. 

"  The  lovely  town  was  white  with  apple-bloomSj 

And  the  great  elms  o'erhead 
Dark  shadows  wove  on  their  aerial  looms, 
Shot  through  with  golden  thread. 

"Across  the  meadows,  by  the  gray  old  manse, 

The  historic  river  flowed  ; 
I  was  as  one  who  wanders  in  a  trance, 
Unconscious  of  his  road. 

w  The  faces  of  familiar  friends  seemed  strange  ; 

Their  voices  I  could  hear, 

And  yet  the  words  they  uttered  seemed  to  change 
Their  meaning  to  the  ear. 

"  For  the  one  face  I  looked  for  was  not  there, 

The  one  low  voice  was  mute  ; 
Only  an  unseen  presence  filled  the  air, 
And  baffled  my  pursuit. 

"  Now  I  look  back,  and  meadow,  manse,  and  stream 

Dimly  my  thought  defines; 
I  only  see  —  a  dream  within  a  dream  — 
The  hill-top  hearsed  with  pines. 

"  I  only  hear  above  his  place  of  rest 

Their  tender  undertone, 
The  infinite  longings  of  a  troubled  breast, 
The  voice  so  like  his  own. 

*  There  in  seclusion  and  remote  from  men 

The  wizard  hand  lies  cold, 
Which  at  its  topmost  speed  let  fall  the  pem, 
And  left  the  talc  half  told. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  553 

u  Ah,  who  shall  lift  that  wand  of  magic  power, 

And  the  lost  clue  regain  ? 
The  unfinished  window  in  Aladdin's  tower 
Unfinished  must  remain  I  " 


V. 

This  narrative  of  his  career,  in  one  sense  so  sim 
ple,  so  uneventful,  has  brought  chiefly  to  the  front, 
as  we  have  followed  it,  a  phase  under  which  Haw 
thorne  appears  the  most  like  other  men  ;  with  motives 
easily  understood,  wishing  to  take  his  full  share  in  hu 
man  existence  and  its  responsibilities ;  devoted  in  his 
domestic  relations.  Moderately  ambitious  of  worldly 
welfare,  but  in  poverty  uncomplaining,  he  is  so  coolly 
practical  in  his  view  that  he  scarcely  alludes  to  the 
products  of  his  genius  except  as  they  may  bear  upon 
his  material  progress.  Even  this  much  of  the  char 
acter  is  uncommon,  because  of  its  sterling  tone,  the 
large,  sustained  manliness,  and  the  success  with  which 
in  the  main  it  keeps  itself  firmly  balanced  ;  but  it  is  a 
character  not  difficult  to  grasp,  and  one  that  appeals 
to  every  observer.  It  leaves  out  a  great  deal,  however. 
The  artist  is  absent  from  it.  Neither  is  that  essential 
mystery  of  organization  included  which  held  these  ele 
ments  together,  united  them  with  something  of  import 
far  different,  and  converted  the  whole  nature  into  a 
most  extraordinary  one,  lifting  it  to  a  plane  high  above 
that  on  which  it  might,  at  first,  seem  to  rest. 

We  know,  from  brief  allusions  in  his  "  Note-Books," 
that  Hawthorne  was  perfectly  well  aware  of  his  high 
quality  as  an  artist.  He  speaks  of  having  won  fame 
in  his  dismal  room  in  Herbert  Street ;  and  at  Arezzo, 
in  1858,  the  well  "  opposite  Petrarch's  birth-house " 


554  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

which  Boccaccio  introduced  into  one  of  his  stories,  re* 
calls  to  the  American  writer  one  of  his  own  perfor 
mances.  "  As  I  lingered  round  it  I  thought  of  my  own 
town-pump  in  old  Salem,  and  wondered  whether  my 
towns-people  would  ever  point  it  out  to  strangers,  and 
whether  the  stranger  would  gaze  at  it  with  any  degree 
of  such  interest  as  I  felt  in  Boccaccio's  well.  Oh, 
certainly  not ;  but  I  made  that  humble  town-pump 
the  most  celebrated  structure  in  the  good  town.  A 
thousand  and  a  thousand  people  had  pumped  there, 
merely  to  water  oxen  or  fill  their  tea-kettles ;  but 
when  once  I  grasped  the  handle,  a  rill  gushed  forth 
that  meandered  as  far  as  England,  as  far  as  India, 
besides  tasting  pleasantly  in  every  town  and  village 
of  our  own  country.  I  like  to  think  of  this,  so  long 
after  I  did  it,  and  so  far  from  home,  and  am  not 
without  hopes  of  some  kindly  local  remembrance  on 
this  score."  l  Such  indications  of  the  artistic  con 
sciousness  are  the  merest  ripples  on  the  surface  ;  the 
deeper  substance  of  it,  with  Hawthorne,  always  re- 

1  French  and  Italian  Note-Books,  May  30,  1858.  A  contributor  to 
Appletons'  Journal,  writing  in  1875,  describes  a  surviving  specimen  of 
the  old  contrivances  which  then  gave  Salem  its  water-supply.  "  The 
presumption  is  that  a  description  of  this  particular  one  answers  for 
Ilawthorne's  pump,  seeing  that  they  were  all  alike.  It  is  large 
enough  for  a  mausoleum  and  looks  not  unlike  one,  made  of  slabs  of 
dingy  stone,  like  stained,  gray  gravestones  set  up  on  one  end,  in  a 
square  at  the  foundation,  but  all  inclining  inward  at  the  top,  where 
they  are  kept  in  position  by  a  band  of  iron.  A  decaying  segment  of 
log  appears,  in  which  the  pump-handle  works  —  in  vain,  now,  how 
ever,  since,  being  long  out  of  use,  it  has  no  connection  with  the  water 
below ;  on  the  front  side  are  two  circular  holes,  like  a  pair  of  great 
eyes,  made  for  the  insertion  of  the  spouts ;  and,  finally,  a  long-handled 
iron  dish,  like  a  saucepan  or  warming-pan  on  a  smaller  scale,  is  attached 
by  an  iron  chain  to  the  stone,  by  way  of  drinking-vessel.  Altogether, 
though  it  may  not  strike  an  old  Salem  resident  in  that  way,  it  seemi 
to  the  stranger  a  very  unique,  antiquated,  and  remarkable  structure." 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  555 

mained  out  of  sight.     Letters,  which  are  assumed  to 
reveal  so  much  of  those  who  indite  them,  are,  when 
we  come  to  the  fact,  very  insufficient  exponents  of 
character  ;  as,  for  instance,  we  may  observe  in  the  let 
ters  of  Michael  Angelo,  whose  mood  and  manner  vary 
according  to  the  person  addressed.    Correspondence,  it 
is  true,  is  appetizing  to  readers,  and  should  be  prized 
for  the  help  it  gives  in  defining  an  individual,  but  it 
does  not  always  do  full  justice  to  the  larger  being  in 
cluded  in  the  whole  personality.     Hawthorne's  letters 
are  more  representative  of  those  faculties  by  which  he 
came  into  association  with  his  fellows,  than  of  those 
which  tended  to  separate  him  from  them  by  making 
him  single  and  phenomenal,  in  his  function  as  writer 
of  romance.     But  in  his  actual  presence  there  was  a 
something  which  did  most  noticeably  correspond  to  the 
hidden  sources  of  his  power,  and  visibly  express  them. 
There  was  the  hale  and  vigorous  port  of  a  man  well 
fitted  by  his  physical  constitution  to  meet  the  rudest 
emergency ;    but   there  was   also    a   temperament    of 
which  the  reserve,  the  delicacy,  the  tremulous  sensi 
tiveness  were  equal  to  those  of  the  most  finely  organ 
ized  woman.     "  He  was  tall  and  strongly  built,"  wrote 
his  friend  Hillard,  "  with  broad  shoulders,  deep  chest, 
a  massive  head.  ...  He  looked  like  a  man  who  might 
have  held  the   stroke  oar  in  a  University  boat.  ... 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  no  man  had  more  of  the  femi 
nine  element  than  he.     He  was  feminine  in  his  quick 
perceptions,  his  fine  insight,  his  sensibility  to  beauty. 
...  No  man  comprehended  woman    better   than  he. 
And  his  face  was  as  mobile  and  rapid  in  its  changes 
of  expression  as  that  of  a  young  girl.  .  .  .  His  eyes 
woidd  darken  visibly  under  the  touch  of   a  passing 
emotion,  like  the  waters  of  a  fountain  ruffled  by  the 


556  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

breeze   of   summer.      So,  too,   he  was  the  shyest   of 


men." 

The  same  writer  adds :  "  There  was  nothing  morbid 
in  his  character  or  temperament.  He  was,  indeed, 
much  the  reverse  of  morbid.  No  man  of  genius  ever 
had  less  the  infirmities  of  genius  than  he  ...  Haw 
thorne  was  physically  one  of  the  healthiest  of  men. 
His  pulse  always  kept  even  music.  He  cared  nothing 
for  wine  or  tobacco,  or  strong  coffee  or  strong  tea.  He 
was  a  sound  sleeper  and  an  early  riser.  He  was  never 
moody  or  fitful  or  irritable.  He  was  never  unduly  de 
pressed  or  unreasonably  elated.  His  spirits  were  not 
brilliant,  but  they  were  uniform,  and,  as  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne  says,  4  The  airy  splendor  of  his  wit  and  humor 
was  the  light  of  his  own  home.' " 

Dr.  Loring  has  supplied  another  sketch  of  his  ap 
pearance  in  general  intercourse,  which  does  a  great 
deal  to  fill  out  our  conception :  — 

"  He  knew  no  such  thing  as  fear ;  was  scrupulously 
honest ;  was  unwavering  in  his  fidelity ;  conscientious 
in  the  discharge  of  his  duty.  There  may  have  been 
men  of  more  latent  power,  but  I  have  known  no  man 
more  impressive,  none  in  whom  the  great  reposing 
strength  seemed  clad  in  such  a  robe  of  sweetness  as 
he  wore.  I  saw  him  on  the  day  General  Pierce  was 
elected  to  the  presidency.  It  was  a  bright  and  de 
licious  day  in  late  autumn.  He  was  standing  under 
the  little  shaded  and  embowered  piazza  of  '  The  Way 
side,'  at  Concord,  in  the  full  vigor  of  his  manhood, 
radiant  with  joy  at  the  good  fortune  of  his  friend,  and 
with  that  sad,  shy  smile  playing  over  his  face,  which 
was  so  touching  and  charming.  I  have  seen  him 
fishing  from  the  rocks  of  the  Essex  County  shore  at 

1  Atlantic  Monthly,  September,  1870,  vol.  26,  p.  257. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  557 

Swampscott,  enjoying  the  bliss  of  absolute  repose  and 
the  sweet  uncertainty  which  attends  the  angler's  line. 
I  have  sat  with  him  in  the  dimly  lighted  room  on 
autumnal  evenings,  cheerful  and  vocal  with  the  cricket's 
chirp,  and  have  heard  his  wise  and  sensible  talk,  ut 
tered  in  that  soft,  melodious  tone  which  gave  such  a 
peculiar  charm  to  his  utterances,  —  a  tone  so  shy  that 
an  intruder  would  hush  it  into  silence  in  an  instant.  I 
have  strolled  with  him  in  the  darkness  of  a  summer 
night  through  the  lanes  of  Concord,  assured  by  his 
voice,  which  came  up  from  the  grass-grown  roadside  in 
a  sort  of  mysterious  murmur,  that  he  was  my  compan 
ion  still.  And  everywhere  and  at  all  times,  he  bore 
about  him  a  strong  and  commanding  presence  and  im 
pression  of  unpretending  power.  I  can  hardly  tell 
how  Hawthorne  succeeded  in  entertaining  his  compan 
ions  and  securing  their  entire  confidence,  unless  it  was 
that  he  displayed  great  good  sense  and  acuteness  and 
good  temper  in  his  intercourse  with  them,  and  never 
misled  them  by  false  promises  or  low  appeals.  This, 
in  addition  to  his  subtile  genius,  everywhere  recognized 
and  never  wholly  concealed  to  even  the  most  common 
place  associates,  made  him  a  most  fascinating  friend,  as 
he  was  really  and  truly  a  man  of  rare  quality  among 
ordinary  men."  l 

The  earlier  portraits  of  Hawthorne  show  the  gentle 
ness  and  the  feminine  traits  in  his  disposition  much 
more  distinctly  than  those  that  are  best  known  to  the 
world.  There  is  one,  now  owned  by  his  cousin,  Mr. 
Richard  C.  Manning,  of  Salem,  which  was  painted  in 
1840  by  Charles  Osgood,  an  artist  of  Salem,  and  in 
duced  this  comment  from  his  sister  Louisa:  "The 
color  is  a  little  too  high,  to  be  sure,  but  perhaps  it  is 
1  Papyrus  Leaves,  pp.  261,  262. 


558  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

a  modest  blusli  at  the  compliments  which  are  paid  to 
your  pen."     Another,  painted  by  a  Mr.  C.  G.  Thomp 
son,  at  Boston,  in  1850  (now  owned  by  Mr.  Julian 
Hawthorne),  resembles  this,  and  presents,  one  would 
say,  the  ideal  Hawthorne  of  the  "  Twice-Told  Tales  " 
and  "  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables."     The  face  is 
smooth  shaven  and  the  cheeks  are  somewhat  slender, 
making  all  the  lines  and  features  contribute  to  an  ef 
fect  of  greater  length  and  of  more  oval  contour  than 
that  given  by  the  later  representations.     The  color  is 
delicate ;  the  large  eyes  look  forth  with  peculiarly  fas 
cinating  power  from  beneath  a  forehead  of  exceptional 
height  and  harmonious  prominence.     The  hair  is  long, 
and  recedes  slightly  on  both  sides  of  the  forehead ;  a 
single  lock  in  the  middle  curving  over  and  drooping 
forward.     There  is  less  firmness  about  the  lips  than 
was  characteristic  of  them  in  his   latter  years ;  they 
close  softly,  yet  even  in  their  pictured   repose  they 
seem  to  be  mobile  and  ready  to  quiver  with  response 
to  some  emotion  still  undefined  but  liable  to  make  it 
self  felt  at  any  instant.     In  its  surrounding  of  long 
hair,  and  of  a  collar  rising  above  the  jaws,  with  a  large 
black  tie  wound  about  the  throat  in  the  manner  of  a 
stock  but  terminating  in  a  large  bow  at  the  front,  the 
beardless  countenance  is  stamped  with  a  sort  of  preva 
lent  aspect  of  the  period  when  it  was  painted,  which 
gives  it  what  we  call  the  old-fashioned  look.     It  is, 
none   the  less,  a  striking  one  ;    one  that  arrests  the 
glance  immediately,  and  holds  it  by  a  peculiar  spell. 
There  is  no  suggestion  of  a  smile  or  of  cheeriness  about 
it ;  the  eyes  even  look  a  little   weary,   as  with   too 
much  meditation  in  the  brain  behind  them  ;  there  is 
not  a  trace  discernible  of  that  sturdy,  almost  military, 
resoluteness  so  marked  in  the  familiar  crayon  portrait 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  559 

by  Eowse,  executed  after  Hawthorne's  return  from 
Italy  and  England.  Here  the  face  is  pensive,  timid, 
fresh  and  impressionable  as  that  of  some  studious  un 
dergraduate  unusually  receptive  of  ideas,  sentiments, 
and  observations  :  it  is,  indeed,  quiet  and  thoughtful 
to  the  verge  of  sadness.  Longfellow  kept  always  in 
his  study  a  black-and-white  copy  from  this  portrait, 
and  in  speaking  of  it  and  of  the  subject's  extreme  shy 
ness,  said  that  to  converse  with  Hawthorne  was  like 
talking  to  a  woman.  The  Thompson  picture  was  re 
produced  in  1851,  in  a  steel  engraving  of  considerable 
merit,  and  Hawthorne,  thanking  Mr.  Fields  for  some 
of  the  prints,  wrote  from  Lenox  :  "  The  children  rec 
ognized  their  venerable  sire  with  great  delight.  My 
wife  complains  somewhat  of  a  want  of  cheerfulness  in 
the  face ;  and,  to  say  the  truth,  it  does  appear  to  be 
afflicted  with  a  bedevilled  melancholy  ;  but  it  will  do 
all  the  better  for  the  author  of  '  The  Scarlet  Letter.' 
In  the  expression  there  is  a  singular  resemblance  (which 
I  do  not  remember  in  Thompson's  picture)  to  a  min 
iature  of  my  father." 

In  Rome,  Miss  Landor  modelled  a  bust,  the  marble 
copy  of  which  is  now  in  the  Concord  Public  Library. 
It  is  of  life-size,  and  presents  the  head  in  a  position 
which  raises  the  chin  and  inclines  the  plane  of  the  face 
slightly  backward,  so  that  the  effigy  might  be  taken 
for  that  of  an  orator  addressing  a  great  audience. 
This  pose  was  selected  by  the  sculptress  because,  after 
due  study,  she  was  persuaded  that  when  Hawthorne 
became  interested  in  conversation  and  kindled  with  the 
desire  to  set  forth  his  own  view,  he  always  raised  his 
head  and  spoke  from  a  commanding  attitude.  She 
chose  to  perpetuate  a  momentary  action,  instead  of  ren 
dering  his  customary  aspect  of  holding  the  chin  some- 


560  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

what  down  or  on  a  firm  level ;  and  this  may  account 
for  the  likeness  not  being  satisfactory  to  the  mem 
bers  of  Hawthorne's  own  family.  The  bust,  however, 
renders  impressively  the  magnificent  proportions  of 
the  neck  and  head  and  the  whole  physiognomy.  The 
mouth  is  not  concealed,  and,  although  it  exhibits  more 
decision  than  that  of  the  Thompson  picture,  it  conveys 
the  same  general  impression  of  a  quickly  responsive 
sensibility,  Mr.  Thompson  made  his  painting  when 
Hawthorne  was  forty -six,  and  Miss  Landor  had 
sittings  from  the  author  at  the  age  of  fifty-four ;  but 
the  difference  in  apparent  maturity  of  power  in  the 
face  would  indicate  a  much  longer  interval.  This  is 
perhaps  due  to  the  difference  in  the  means  of  represen 
tation,  and  to  some  defect  of  strength  in  Mr.  Thomp 
son's  drawing;  but  perhaps  also  the  decided  change 
in  Hawthorne^s  general  look,  which  began  under  the 
greatly  altered  conditions  attending  his  European  life, 
proceeded  very  rapidly.  He  allowed  a  thick  mustache 
to  grow,  during  his  last  stay  in  England,  and  it  was 
then  that  Kuntze  modelled  his  profile,  which  sets  Haw 
thorne's  features  before  us  in  a  totally  different  way 
from  any  of  the  other  portraits.  Unfortunately, 
Kuntze's  relief  is  reduced  to  a  size  below  that  of  life, 
and  the  features  accordingly  assume  a  cramped  rela 
tion.  The  lofty  forehead  is  given  its  due  importance, 
however,  and  concentration  of  impassioned  energy  is 
conveyed  by  the  outline  of  the  face,  from  this  point  of 
view.  The  chin,  always  forcible  as  well  as  delicate, 
impresses  one  in  this  case  with  a  sense  of  persistent 
and  enduring  determination  on  the  part  of  the  origi 
nal  ;  and  with  this  sense  there  is  mingled  an  impression 
of  something  that  approaches  sternness,  caused,  it  may 
be,  by  the  hirsute  upper  lip.  In  considering  thes« 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  561 

several  representations  and  the  crayon  by  Rowse,  to 
gether  with  the  photographs  taken  after  Hawthorne's 
home-return,  it  is  impossible  not  to  observe  that  the 
sturdier  and  more  practical  elements  in  the  romancer 
gained  upon  him,  so  far  as  personal  appearance  was 
concerned,  with  advancing  age  and  a  wider  experi 
ence  of  life  in  the  large  world.  But  such  a  series  of 
glimpses  can  do  no  more  than  to  suggest  disjointedly 
the  union  in  him  of  attributes  positive  and  passive, 
which  always  struck  those  who  met  him.  A  photo 
graph  which  was  secured  before  he  left  England  de 
picts  him  in  a  mood  and  with  an  air  that  very  hap 
pily  convey  this  complete  equipment  of  the  man,  this 
wellnigh  perfect  combination  of  traits,  which  enabled 
him  by  sympathy  to  run  through  the  entire  gamut  of 
human  feeling.  His  friend,  John  Lothrop  Motley, 
induced  him  one  day  to  enter  a  photographer's  estab 
lishment,  on  the  plea  that  he  had  business  of  his  own 
there.  Hawthorne  was  given  a  book  to  read,  while 
waiting ;  and  when  the  photographer  was  ready  Motley 
attracted  his  friend's  attention.  Hawthorne  looked  up 
with  a  dawning  smile,  a  bright,  expectant  glance,  — 
holding  the  book  on  his  knee  meanwhile,  with  a  finger 
in  the  place,  —  and  instantly  a  perfect  negative  was 
made.  The  resulting  portraiture  showed  him  abso 
lutely  as  he  was :  a  breathing  form  of  human  nobility  ; 
a  strong,  masculine,  self-contained  nature,  stored  in  a 
stalwart  frame  —  the  face  grown  somewhat  more  ro 
tund  than  formerly,  through  material  and  professional 
success,  and  lighted  up  with  captivating  but  calm  ge 
niality  ;  while  over  the  whole  presence  reigned  an  ex 
quisite  temperance  of  reserve,  that  held  every  faculty 
in  readiness  to  receive  and  record  each  finest  fluctua< 
tion  of  joy  or  sorrow,  of  earnest  or  of  sport 


562  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

Such  as  he  there  appears,  we  shall  do  well  to  imagine 
him  to  ourselves. 

The  tendency  at  first,  among  those  who  judged  him 
from  his  writings  alone,  was  to  set  him  down  as  a  mis 
anthrope.  We  need  not  go  to  the  other  extreme  now. 
That  he  inclined  to  gravity,  in  his  manner  and  in  his 
habit  of  thought,  seems  to  be  beyond  question ;  but  he 
was  not  sombre.  Neither  was  he  hilarious.  At  home, 
though  he  was  frequently  silent,  he  never  appeared  to 
be  so  from  depression,  except  in  seasons  of  distress  at 
the  illness  of  members  of  the  household ;  the  prevail 
ing  effect  of  his  presence,  even  when  he  was  least  com 
municative,  being  that  of  a  cheerful  calm  with  mel 
low  humor  underlying  it.  One  of  his  children  said  to 
Mr.  T.  AV.  Higginson  :  "  There  was  never  such  a  play 
mate  in  all  the  world."  On  the  other  hand,  I  remem 
ber  a  letter  from  Hawthorne  (no  longer  accessible  for 
exact  quotation),  in  which  he  frankly  speaks  of  him- 
self  as  taking  constitutionally  a  somewhat  despondent 
view  of  things.  But  if  he  did  so,  he  never  permitted 
the  shadow  to  fall  upon  his  friends.  "  I  should  fancy 
from  your  books,"  Hillard  confessed  in  a  letter  to  him, 
"  that  you  were  burdened  with  some  secret  sorrow,  that 
you  had  some  blue  chamber  in  your  soul,  into  which 
you  hardly  dared  to  enter  yourself;  but  when  I  see 
you,  you  give  me  the  impression  of  a  man  as  healthy 
as  Adam  in  Paradise."  Mr.  Hillard  once  told  the 
present  writer  that  he  had  sometimes  walked  twenty 
miles  along  the  highway  with  Hawthorne,  not  a  word 
being  spoken  during  the  entire  tramp,  and  had  never 
theless  felt  as  if  he  were  in  constant  communication 
with  his  friend.  Mr.  Curtis  wrote  many  years  ago  : 
M  His  own  sympathy  was  so  broad  and  sure,  that,  al 
though  nothing  had  been  said  for  hours,  his  compan- 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  563 

ion  knew  that  not  a  thing  had  escaped  his  eye,  nor  a 
single  pulse  of  beauty  in  the  day  or  scene  or  society 
failed  to  thrill  his  heart.  In  this  way  his  silence  was 
most  social.  Everything  seemed  to  have  been  said." 

His  fondness  for  seclusion,  his  steady  refusal  to  talk 
when  he  did  not  feel  like  talking,  and  his  unobtrusive 
but  immovable  independence  in  opinion,  together  with 
his  complete  disregard  of  conventional  requirements  in 
social  intercourse,  prevented  Hawthorne  from  ever  be 
coming  a  popular  man.  But  he  was  the  object  of  a 
loving  admiration  and  the  sincerest  friendship,  on  the 
part  of  certain  few  intimates.  Those  who  knew  him 
best,  and  had  been  longest  in  relations  with  him,  in 
sensibly —  as  one  observer  has  well  suggested  —  caught 
from  his  fine  reticence  a  kindred  reluctance  to  speak 
about  him  to  others.  A  degree  of  reverence  was  blended 
with  their  friendship,  which  acquired  for  them  a  sa 
cred  privacy.  Having  sound  health  physically,  as  well 
as  a  healthy  mind,  he  enjoyed  out-door  occupations  — 
such  as  garden-work,  rowing,  fishing,  and  walking; 
but  he  never  rode  on  horseback.  He  liked  to  make 
pedestrian  trips  through  the  country,  stopping  at  hap 
hazard  in  country  taverns  and  farm-houses  and  listen 
ing  to  the  conversation  that  went  on  there.  In  chance 
companionship  of  that  sort,  he  could  tolerate  much 
freedom  of  speech,  in  consideration  of  the  mother-wit 
that  prompted  it ;  but  among  men  of  his  own  class  he 
never  encouraged  broad  allusions.  If  anything  that 
savored  of  the  forbidden  were  introduced,  he  would 
not  protest,  but  he  at  once  turned  the  conversation 
towards  some  worthier  subject.  The  practical  vein  in 
Hawthorne  —  his  ingrained  sympathy  with  the  work- 
a-day  world  in  which  his  father  and  his  forefathers 
had  busied  themselves  —  adapted  him  to  the  official 


564  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

drudgery  to  which  he  devoted  nine  years  of  his  life ; 
although,  while  he  was  occupied  with  that,  the  ideal 
activities  of  his  nature  lay  dormant.  The  two  sets  of 
faculties  never  could  be  exercised  in  equal  measure  at 
the  same  time :  one  or  the  other  had  to  predominate. 
Yet  in  the  conduct  of  his  own  affairs,  so  far  as  his  pe 
cuniary  obligations  were  concerned,  he  was  very  pru 
dent,  and  to  the  last  degree  scrupulous.  One  or  two 
exceedingly  small  debts,  which  he  was  forced  to  con 
tract,  weighed  upon  him  with  a  heaviness  that  to  the 
ordinary  commercial  mind  would  be  altogether  incon 
ceivable  ;  and  the  relief  he  experienced  when  he  was 
able  to  cancel  them  was  inexpressible.  His  fault,  in 
business,  was  that  he  attributed  to  other  people  a  sense 
of  honor  equal  to  his  own.  This  entailed  upon  him 
sundry  losses  which  he  was  not  well  able  to  afford, 
through  loans  made  to  supposed  friends.  Notwith 
standing  the  carefulness  of  his  expenditure  and  a  few 
moderately  good  receipts  from  the  publication  of  his 
books  in  England,  he  died  leaving  a  property  of  little 
more  than  twenty  thousand  dollars,  besides  his  house 
at  Concord  and  the  copyright  of  his  works. 

In  addition  to  the  strong  physical  frame  and  tall 
stature  several  times  noticed  in  the  present  sketch, 
Hawthorne's  personal  appearance  was  distinguished  by 
his  large  and  lustrous  gray-blue  eyes,  luxuriant  dark 
brown  hair  of  remarkable  fineness,  and  a  delicacy  of 
the  skin  that  gave  unusual  softness  to  his  complexion ; 
a  complexion  subdued,  but  full  of  "healthy,  living 
color,"  as  Mrs.  Hawthorne  once  described  it.  "  After 
his  Italian  journey  he  altered  much,  his  hair  having 
begun  to  whiten,  and  a  thick  dark  mustache  being 
permitted  to  grow,  so  that  a  wit  described  him  as  look- 
ing  like  a  '  boned  pirate.'  When  it  became  imperative 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  565 

to  shake  off  his  reticence,  he  seems  to  have  had  the 
power  of  impressing  as  much  by  speech  as  he  had  be 
fore  done  by  silence.  It  was  the  same  abundant,  ar 
dent,  but  self-contained  and  perfectly  balanced  nature 
that  informed  either  phase.  How  commanding  was 
this  nature  may  be  judged  by  the  fact  related  of  him 
by  an  acquaintance,  that  rude  people  jostling  him  in  a 
crowd  would  give  way  at  once  4  at  the  sound  of  his  low 
almost  irresolute  voice.'  .  .  .  Something  even  of  the 
eloquent  gift  of  old  Colonel  Hathorne  seemed  to  be 
locked  within  him,  like  a  precious  heirloom  rarely 
shown  ;  for  in  England,  where  his  position  called  for 
speech-making,  he  acquitted  himself  with  brilliant 
honor.  But  the  effort  which  this  compelled  was  no 
doubt  commensurate  with  the  success.  He  never 
shrank,  notwithstanding,  from  effort,  when  obligation 
to  others  put  in  a  plea.  A  member  of  his  family  has 
told  me  that,  when  talking  to  any  one  not  congenial  to 
him,  the  effect  of  the  contact  was  so  strong  as  to  cause 
an  almost  physical  contraction  of  his  whole  stalwart 
frame,  though  so  slight  as  to  be  perceptible  only  to  eyes 
that  knew  his  informal  and  habitual  aspects ;  yet  he 
would  have  sunk  through  the  floor  rather  than  betray 
his  sensations  to  the  person  causing  them.  Mr.  Cur 
tis,  too,  records  the  amusement  with  which  he  watched 
Hawthorne  paddling  on  the  Concord  River,  with  a 
friend  whose  want  of  skill  caused  the  boat  continually 
to  veer  the  wrong  way,  and  the  silent  generosity  with 
which  he  put  forth  his  whole  strength  to  neutralize 
the  error,  rather  than  mortify  his  companion  by  expla 
nation.  His  considerateness  was  always  delicate  and 
alert."  l  A  niece  of  Horace  Mann,  who  passed  a  part 
of  the  spring  of  1852  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hawthorne 

"  *  A  Study  of  Hawthorne:   Chapter,  xi.,  291,  292. 


566  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

at  West  Newton,  supplies  one  little  instance  of  this, 
which  shall  be  registered  here.  Mrs.  Dean,  the  lady 
in  question,  was  then  under  engagement  to  teach  in 
Boston,  but  had  an  interval  of  time  on  her  hands  be 
fore  the  work  should  begin.  She  was  invited  by  the 
Hawthornes  to  the  West  Newton  house  (at  that  time 
owned  by  Mr.  Mann),  where  she  was  to  occupy  a  room 
which  had  formerly  been  hers.  She  found  that  a  fire 
was  carefully  laid  in  the  stove  everjr  night,  to  warm 
the  room  in  the  morning,  and,  thinking  that  too  much 
trouble  was  taken  on  her  account,  she  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  attend  to  this  detail  herself.  It  was  then 
she  discovered  that  it  was  Hawthorne  who  made  up 
the  fire ;  and  he  insisted  upon  continuing  his  service. 
Mrs.  Dean  also  recalls  that  he  listened  attentively  to 
the  incidental  and  ordinary  chat  between  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne  and  herself,  seldom  making  any  remark,  but, 
when  he  did  volunteer  one,  giving  it  a  pungent  and 
epigrammatic  or  humorous  turn.  Entering  the  room 
where  she  was  constructing  a  raised  map  for  school 
room  use,  he  watched  her  with  close  interest  for  a 
while,  and  then  observed :  "  I  would  rather  have  had 
the  making  of  the  world  itself,  in  the  beginning." 

Taking  whatever  happened  in  a  spirit  always  very 
much  the  same ;  reflective,  penetrating,  quietly  spor 
tive  —  a  spirit,  likewise,  of  patience  and  impartiality 
—  Hawthorne  kept  his  power  of  appreciation  fresh  to 
the  very  last.  He  could  endure  the  humdrum  tasks 
of  government  office,  but  they  «lid  not  dull  his  pleasure 
in  the  simplest  incidents  of  home-life,  nor  his  delight 
in  nature.  "  Every  year  the  recurrent  changes  of  sea 
son  filled  him  with  untold  pleasure  ;  and  in  the  spring, 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  has  been  heard  to  say,  he  would  walk 
with  her  in  continuous  silence,  his  heart  full  of  the 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  567 

awe  and  delight  with  which  the  miracle  of  buds  and 
new  verdure  inspired  him."  Taking  everything  in  this 
spirit,  we  may  repeat,  mingling  with  the  rough  and  the 
refined,  and  capable  of  extracting  the  utmost  intellec 
tual  stimulus  from  the  least  of  mundane  phenomena, 
he  maintained  intact  a  true  sense  of  relativity  and  a 
knowledge  that  the  attainable  best  is,  in  the  final  anal 
ysis,  incomplete.  Contemplating  a  rose  one  day,  he 
said  :  "  On  earth,  only  a  flower  is  perfect."  He  cher 
ished  a  deep,  strong,  and  simple  religious  faith,  but 
never  approved  of  intellectual  discussion  concerning 
religion. 

The  slightness  of  the  definite  fact,  or  of  the  remi 
niscence  vouchsafed  by  those  who  knew  him,  is  con 
tinually  impressed  upon  us  in  reviewing  this  career. 
Considered  in  its  main  outline,  how  very  plain  and 
unambitious  is  the  history  !  A  sea-captain's  son,  born 
in  Salem  ;  living  obscurely  ;  sent  up  to  the  rude  clear 
ing  where  a  new  village  was  founding  in  Maine  ;  in 
duced,  against  his  preference,  to  go  to  college ;  writ 
ing  timid  stories  and  essays,  which  the  world  had  no 
suspicion  that  it  needed,  and  prompted  to  this  by 
an  impulse  of  which  the  origin  is  inexplicable ;  next, 
the  author  coming  into  notice,  but  under  eclipse  now 
and  then  from  disappearance  behind  a  public  office ; 
finally,  the  acknowledged  romancer  of  indefinitely 
great  endowment  —  the  head  of  his  order  in  Amer 
ica  —  sent  abroad  to  an  important  post,  where  he  is 
recognized  and  warmly  greeted  by  every  one  who  can 
discern  clearly  :  such  is  the  general  course  of  the  nar 
rative.  Afterwards,  the  now  eminent  man  comes  back 
to  his  native  land,  labors  a  little  longer  in  comparative 
obscurity,  suffers  unmerited  obloquy  for  his  fidelity  to 
a  personal  friend,  while  perfectly  loyal  to  his  govern- 


568  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

ment ;  then  dies,  and  is  mourned  not  alone  by  those 
devoted  companions  who  felt  him  to  be  the  one  great 
fact  to  them  in  present  human  nature,  but  also  by 
famous  scholars  and  poets,  and  by  a  multitude  of 
strangers,  who  gather  around  his  bier  with  a  stricken 
sense  of  loss  ineffable.  It  is  very  simple ;  it  is  very 
democratic  —  the  unnoticed  American  boy  in  humble 
circumstances  becoming  the  centre  of  a  circle  of  fame 
which  is  still  extending  its  radius.  Very  simple  it 
is,  and  yet  inexplicable.  But  if  we  cannot  tell  pre 
cisely  how  the  mind  came  into  being,  nor  what  were 
the  fostering  influences  that  most  cogently  aided  its 
growth,  we  can,  at  least,  pay  our  reverence  to  the 
overruling  Power  that  brings  genius  to  the  flowering- 
point  under  circumstances  seemingly  the  most  un- 
propitious. 

In  1863  —  the  last  year  of  his  life  —  Hawthorne 
wrote  to  Mr.  Stoddard,  who  had  sent  him  a  copy  of 
his  poem,  "  The  King's  Bell."  "  I  sincerely  thank 
you,"  he  said,  "  for  your  beautiful  poem,  which  I  have 
read  with  a  great  deal  of  pleasure.  It  is  such  as  the 
public  had  a  right  to  expect  from  what  you  gave  us 
in  years  gone  by ;  only  I  wish  the  idea  had  not  been 
so  sad.  I  think  Felix  might  have  rung  the  bell  once 
in  his  lifetime,  and  again  at  the  moment  of  death. 
Yet  you  may  be  right.  I  have  been  a  happy  man, 
and  yet  I  do  not  remember  any  one  moment  of  such 
happy  conspiring  circumstances  that  I  could  have 
rung  a  joy-bell  for  it." 

Yes,  he  had  been  a  happy  man ;  one  who  had  every 
qualification  for  a  rich  and  satisfactory  life,  and  was 
able  to  make  such  a  life  out  of  whatever  material 
offered.  He  might  not  have  been  willing  to  sound 
the  joy-bell  for  himself,  but  the  world  has  rung  it 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  569 

because  of  his  birth.  As  for  his  death,  it  is  better 
not  to  close  our  sketch  with  any  glimpse  of  that,  be 
cause,  in  virtue  of  his  spirit's  survival  among  those 
who  read  and  think,  he  still  lives. 

G.  P.  L. 
NEW  YORK,  May  20, 1883. 


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